


Way Down We Go

by Abbie



Series: Long Way Down [4]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Aftermath of captivity, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brief body horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationships, F/M, Gen, Kidnapping, Lazarus Pit, League of Assassins - Freeform, Not Season 3 Compliant, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Drama, Recovery, Team as Family, Thriller, Tommy Merlyn is Alive
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-26 04:56:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 99,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6224833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abbie/pseuds/Abbie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tommy and Felicity return to Starling with Oliver and Team Arrow, each of them shattered in their own way, each of them in need of healing. But Tommy and Felicity, bound now by the horrors they escaped together, are dogged not just by the shadows they have brought back with them—but also by the monsters that follow them home through the dark...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ghost In My House

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all so much for bearing with me through the long wait. I hope you find these 34 pages worth the delay... ;)
> 
> The graphic, by the way, was created for me by the utterly wonderful always_a_queen, without the help and cheerleading of whom and StoriesOfImagination and ohemgeeitscoley, I might never have made it. Thank you, ladies. <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter contains vivid descriptions of PTSD and panic attacks; some readers may find this difficult to read.

[ ](http://tinypic.com?ref=ivzguv)

_"[Oh, Father, tell me. Do we get what we deserve?"](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYprVYqX-EWRO-JAb_eqT4ErDPP0EA4Fa)_

* * *

 

“He’s stable,” Diggle said wearily, taping a gauze swatch over the puncture in Oliver’s elbow. “For now. It’s damn lucky you’re the same blood type.”

Digg leveraged up from his knees between Tommy and Oliver and sat on the bench seat opposite Felicity. His eyes flicked to her briefly, his expression very carefully inscrutable.

Oliver, his palm covering the bandage on his arm, leaned back against the van wall and stared down at Tommy’s wan face. “We’re not,” he rasped. “Tommy’s AB positive. Universal recipient.” He reached out with shaky fingers and touched the back of Tommy’s hand, like he couldn’t quite believe he was real. “We got typed in middle school. I used to joke that he was greedy.”

Felicity, leaning tiredly against the wall of the van opposite them in her seat, watched this vulnerable display, her heart and guts twisting. She knotted her hands together in her lap, teeth worrying incessantly at her bottom lip.

Oliver sighed heavily, and when Felicity raised her gaze she found his eyes on her face.

Grimacing, he glanced again at Tommy and braced an elbow on the wall to leverage to his feet. Watching him step across the floor of the van towards her, Felicity sucked her lip between her teeth and wished she had sleeves to pull her hands inside of.

He stood awkwardly in front of her, and Felicity found with some distress that she couldn’t look into his face for more than a few seconds at a time. “Can I…?”

She stared at the black Under Armour shirt covering his stomach and in her periphery watched  his hand indicate the bench beside her. Slowly releasing her lower lip, she nodded.

On the other side of the van, Diggle leaned his head back and closed his eyes, for all the world as if he weren’t listening.

Oliver sat gingerly down beside her with a sigh, close enough she could feel the warmth of him, not so close they were touching. Felicity was peculiarly _aware_ of their bare arms, her jacket left behind and bloody in the Jeep, Oliver’s leather jacket folded neatly under Tommy’s head. If the van were to bump particularly ambitiously over a pothole, their skin might brush.

Oliver cleared his throat. “Is it… is it really him?”

Felicity turned her head to look at his profile; he was staring still at Tommy, and Felicity followed his gaze.

Tommy lay loose-limbed and pale on the floor of the van, his skin chalky under the dark stubble shadowing his jaw. Dried, flaky rust-red smeared his chin, pinched near the corners of his mouth. Felicity realized they were her fingerprints.

She looked down and splayed an unsteady hand, red-brown caking the nail beds and the skin between her fingers. “Yes.”

Mouth opening, Oliver’s head shook slowly back and forth at the fantastical impossibility of it all. His voice dragged out of him like raw, rough silk over gravel; fine threads of hope snagging on the hard edges of cruel experience. “...How?”

Felicity’s jaw hung open, voiceless; a cold slug of unease squirmed through her belly as she tried to even _fathom_ the words—the arrangement of sentences—where to even _begin_. Finally, licking her lips, she said weakly, “It’s… a very long story. And I think—I think Tommy should probably be the one to tell it to you.” Shakily, she drew in a long breath, and he turned his head to look at her. “Oliver… it isn’t a very _happy_ story.”

Shifting his body towards her, he raised a hand and, very gently, very carefully, cupped her cheek in his palm. His thumb stroked over her cheekbone, and something began to crack in Felicity’s chest—the first hairline fracture in something vital.

He swallowed hard, his eyes searching her face—cataloging the changes, no doubt. “It’s working out a lot happier than most of my other ones.”

Felicity sucked in a sharp breath, her eyes welling with tears.

Oliver stroked a stray, frizzed, two-tone curl behind Felicity’s ear—one fingertip brushing briefly over the unevenly sealed hole her industrial piercing previously occupied—his voice hushed, private, confessional. “I can’t believe we found you.” Leaning her face into his hand, she let her eyes slide shut. “I am _so glad_ we found you.”

A sob broke in her throat and she fell into his arms, open and waiting.

He pulled her tight against him, and though for a moment she felt trapped, pinned, she slid her arms around Oliver’s ribs and held on for all she was worth. His hand cupped the back of her head _so_ gently—a lightness of pressure that was shattering in impact.

Felicity clung to him and cried, her shoulders shaking in the loop of his arms, face buried against his shoulder. Gasping damply against his collarbone, she whispered, “I wasn’t—I wasn’t sure you _would_.”

His breath hitched, and when he answered, his voice cracked over the sharp edge of his emotion. “I wasn’t either.” Gently, he set her back, his hands on her shoulders, chafing softly up and down from clavicles to elbows. His palms slid up the back of her neck as he ducked his chin to hold her eye, fingers cradling the back of her skull, thumbs swiping at the wet tracks on her cheeks. “Felicity— _this_ is a happy story. No matter what. You’re _here_. You’re—I was so afraid—” he cut himself off with a clenched jaw and closed eyes, his brows twitching up and in with the effort to restrain himself. His eyes opened, and there were such _worlds_ of words and nightmares and hopes that Felicity couldn’t begin to grasp at. “This is one of my happy stories. Do you understand?”

Her heart throbbed in her chest, too large, too swollen under her breastbone—just too _much_. Chin trembling, tears slipping down her cheeks again—Oliver so quick to wipe them away—she nodded.

Scooting along the bench to close the inches between them, Felicity leaned into Oliver’s side, tucking her head in the hollow of his shoulder. He held her loosely in his arms, his warmth—that human, giving warmth that, for just this moment, chased away the chill that had lived in her bones for over three months—enveloping and enfolding her.

His mouth pressed to her hair, Oliver breathed, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry we took so long. I’ll make them pay, Felicity.” His voice dropped into darkness, a hungry growl rolling under his words. “I’ll make them pay in blood.”

Her heart sinking like a stone, Felicity’s eyes caught on Tommy’s face—Tommy’s bloodless, blood-smeared face—and quiet, cold, whispering fears climbed up her throat and locked her jaw.

Oliver held her close and promised retribution in her name.

And Felicity stared at Tommy Merlyn, silent.

—

Entirely without meaning or expecting to, Felicity dozed.

They must have ridden in silence for some time, for it was Roy’s voice—in her brief, exhausted disorientation, the _wrong_ voice—that startled her awake, her head jarring against Oliver’s collarbone as she blinked gritty eyes open.

“We’re getting close,” Roy was saying softly. “Should I call ahead?”

Oliver’s hand rubbed absently up and down Felicity’s spine where she curled into his side. “Yeah. Just—” he cut off with a sigh, and Felicity felt the turn of his neck, his chin brushing the top of her head as he no doubt looked at Tommy. “Just… tell Laurel to prep the medcart.”

Roy hesitated a beat, then, skeptically, “Okay. Uh. Does she even know where any of that is?”

Sliding up from his slouch on the bench opposite, Diggle sighed and unfolded his arms, pinching at the bridge of his nose and glancing down at Tommy. “I got it, Roy. Just get us home.”

Felicity watched John pull a cell phone from his jacket pocket, the tight ball of dread in her stomach compacting more densely. Awkwardly, she braced a hand on Oliver’s chest and pushed upright, her heart thudding conflictedly as Oliver’s arm slid away from her back. She bit her lips together and looked into his tired face, letting her own show her confusion. “Laurel?”

She winced at the rough croak of her own voice.

Leaning in so his shoulder pressed solidly against hers, Oliver murmured, “She’s been… helping. I asked her to hold down the fort while we came to—” his lips twitched, a brief flicker of a smile so joyous and disbelieving that Felicity’s breath caught, “—to get you.”

Felicity couldn’t even begin to _have_ emotions about that information. But her head turned to look at Tommy, so still she found herself craning her neck to catch the shallow rise and fall of his chest. “That’s… going to be difficult.”

She glanced back at Oliver to see he’d followed her gaze. “Everything about this is going to be difficult.”

Far more than he knew.

With a little dry cough, Felicity looked away.

“Hey.” Roy glanced back from the front before returning his eyes to the road, lifting his arm across the back of the seat, a water bottle extended in his hand.

For just a second—deeply surreal and echoing from caverns a thousand lifetimes behind her—his hand was Tommy’s and the black van interior was a tiny white room.

Oliver took the bottle from Roy’s hand, and Felicity blinked back into the moment with the little plastic _snap_ of Oliver twisting the bottle cap. He passed it to her, and she resisted the absurd compulsion to run her fingertips along the plastic to feel for punctures.

Hands wrapping around the cool, ridged body, she looked back up to see Roy’s eyes on her in the rearview mirror. For him, she tried a smile. “Thank you.”

His eyes crinkled up at the corners in return.

“No, Laurel, it’s okay, we’re all—” Felicity turned her head to see Digg cut his glance to Tommy and grimace. “We’re mostly all in one piece. It’s not something that can really be explained on the phone. Just—” He cut off, lips pressing together, and after a moment met Felicity’s gaze. His eyes softened, lips curling a little. “Yeah. Yeah, we really found her.”

Stupidly, tears pricked at her eyes again, and with a quick, wobbly smile for John, she focused on her water in little sips that cooled her throat and wet a mouth that had become like cotton.

“Just brace yourself, Laurel. It’s gonna—” He sighed. “You’ll see soon enough.”

“Be there in less than fifteen,” Roy called back.

“Fifteen minutes. Yeah. You too.”

Screwing the cap back on her bottle of water, Felicity looked again at Tommy. The reality that she and the others were seeing very different things settled on her slowly, itching against her skin.

She looked at his hands and saw… weapons. Saw the muscle and weight of him, carved and honed to kill. (Felt his fingers tap-tapping against her knee.) Saw the dark circles under his eyes and knew the fractures in his mind that put them there. (Heard howled screaming from remembered tortures split open the night.)

What did Oliver see? What would _Laurel_ see?

A best friend. A lover. A _gift_.

Loved and lost and returned to them despite everything.

How long would that possibly last?

Diggle got on his knees beside Tommy, breaking her stare. “Oliver, come help me get him prepped.” He put two fingers to Tommy’s neck, checking his pulse. “We’re gonna need to get him on the IV ASAP so I can take a look at this wound and sew him up.”

Oliver got up to help Digg, and Felicity clenched both hands on the edge of the seat.

An explosion was building, but Felicity was the only one who could feel it. As Roy warned they were coming up on the alley access to the foundry, Felicity wondered with mounting dread if they might not all survive the blast.

—

Felicity was first through the door.

Knees shaky, palms sweating, heart racing, she felt as if she should duck for cover the short distance from the van to the alley door, eyes darting wide in cognitive flashes of damp pavement, the smell of hot, wet bricks, the summer-ripe reek of a dumpster at the alley’s opposite end. Vagrant breezes shifted moisture-heavy air, too open. Orange streetlight reflected on a rain puddle, the grit of the cement under her soles—

Roy in red with bags in one hand, the other waving to direct Oliver and Diggle, Tommy hanging from armpits and knees between them—

Their mouths kept moving, but it was just _noise_ , her blood rushing in her ears to drown the words to slurry—

The door was unlocked and ready for them, and it was so familiarly heavy under Felicity’s palms— _un_ familiarly _too_ heavy—as she shoved it open.

Roy ushered her in, squeezing in after her to hold the door open for Digg and Oliver, and Felicity felt a queer relief at the coolness of the basement air on her skin.

“Oh my god.”

Felicity’s eyes snapped forward from their roam across the beloved space, and she found Laurel standing by the foot of the stairs, one arm wrapped around her stomach, her other hand pressed to her throat.

She swept her gaze over Felicity in stunned relief. “You’re really here. They really found you.”

Felicity stared at Laurel, her body gone stock-still and posture wary. Her mouth opened, and in a small, confused voice, the only word that came out was, “Hi.”

There was no time after that for further greetings.

“Felicity, the crash cart.” Oliver’s voice was tight, terse, and Felicity whirled, cheeks going cold in fear.

He and John were hurrying through the door with Tommy limp between them, and Felicity’s eyes caught quickly on the fresh-spreading red on Tommy’s side, her eyes dropping to the fast-growing trail of scarlet drops that followed them in.

 _Crash cart_.

“I got it,” Roy leapt into action, letting the door clang shut on its own as he darted past Felicity towards the medical equipment.

A strangled scream behind her ripped Felicity’s attention back to Laurel, who was staring at Oliver and Digg—at _Tommy_ —her face ghost-white and both hands clapped over her mouth. She lurched forward a handful of rapid steps, drawing even with Felicity—who tensed up and pulled her arms in tight reflexively—head shaking and eyes wide. “ _Tommy_.”

Anxiety knotted Felicity’s insides, glancing furtively back at the boys as they heaved Tommy onto the medical bench and started cutting his shirt off of him. Oliver strung up a bag of blood on the IV stand while Roy grimly prepped the defibrillator.

Diggle bent over Tommy’s side and reported, “Two staples tore loose. I need a scalpel and forceps. Oliver, get that line in, _now_. Roy, the light.”

Laurel swung her gaze to Felicity, hands dropping to her sides and curling into fists. Nostrils flaring, brows pinched over her nose and lips skinning back from her teeth, Laurel stabbed a finger in the boys’ direction and demanded of Felicity, “ _What_ is this?”

Felicity flinched back a step from her, head shaking and mouth working wordlessly. Shame and worry and anger burned a pillar through her, and she clenched her jaw and straightened her spine, doing her best to meet Laurel’s eye. “It’s Tommy.”

Laurel’s head jerked back as if Felicity had slapped her. Mouth hanging open, eyes shining wetly, she shook her head. “He died.” Laurel turned again to catch glimpses of Tommy’s pale face between Roy, Digg, and Oliver as they hurriedly worked around him. “He _died_. I was there when—I _saw_ —” she sucked in a ragged, loud breath, the sound painful as a punctured lung. “I watched the Hood— _Oliver_ carry him out of CNRI. The EMTs didn’t even bother running the sirens. They wouldn’t let me go with the—with the _body_.”

Laurel looked again at Felicity, the helpless, pleading look on her face making Felicity queasy. “He _died_.”

Felicity’s mouth opened without words yet again—throat stoppering desperately at the absurd, horrible echo that wanted to come out; _“he got better”_ —arms wrapped tight around herself in the face of Laurel’s raw grief.

Tommy cried out, and Felicity left Laurel behind before the sound truly registered.

She halted abruptly barely two feet away from the chaos over the med bench. Tommy was groaning and writhing on the table, head tossing back and forth, eyes rolling under fluttering lids. Not conscious, just in pain.

“Damn it,” Digg hissed. Turning his head, he barked at Oliver on the other side of the table. “Hold him down. I think there’s something in the damn wound—”

Crying out harshly again, Tommy bucked on the table, one of his hands gripping the cold metal edge. Tears leaked out of eyes squeezed tightly shut, sliding down into his temples.

Felicity stared in tense horror, fists pressed against her mouth, poised on the toes of her front foot as if to leap into the fray.

Behind her, voice high and thin with fear, Laurel demanded, “What’s happening?”

“Damn it, Roy, get the sedatives!” Oliver snapped, pinning Tommy with a forearm across his collarbone and a hand on Tommy’s hip.

Roy snatched a prepped syringe off the medical cart and scurried to the IV, quickly injecting a clear fluid into the line port.

“Shit!” Diggle straightened from his bend over Tommy’s wound to pin Tommy’s legs as he began to thrash. “Roy!”

“Yeah, I got it!” Roy snapped, leaping around Oliver to throw himself bodily over Tommy’s legs, grunting as a knee caught him in the gut but holding on. “Jesus, is he on mirakuru?”

Suddenly, three pairs of eyes turned questioningly to Felicity, and she jolted in shock, blinking rapidly before spitting out, “N—No. No mirakuru. He’s not—there isn’t—”

Their attention was already back on Tommy. “The sedatives are working,” Roy reported with relief, easing upright but keeping his hands on Tommy’s knees.

Tommy slowly went limp against the bench, his breathing slowing, bruised eyelids stilling.

“Okay,” John bent over Tommy’s side again. “Felicity.”

She stepped hurriedly forward, hovering just behind him.

He looked back at her. “Do you remember how long the blade was? How many inches?”

“Um,” she licked her lips, the world around her tilting sickly, memory slicing in vivid-blurred-vivid ribbons through her fingers. “Um, it—it was—it was…” Cursing softly, she squeezed her eyes shut and tightened her fists, focusing on the gleam of the passing streetlights on the bloodied steel as Tommy pulled the blade from his flesh. “Inch and a half? Two inches?”

Digg gave her a clipped nod, honing his attention back on the wound. “Shouldn’t have gotten deep enough to hit any—”

Suddenly, Tommy began to convulse.

“Someone tell me what the fuck is happening!” Laurel shouted over the rattle of the bench as Tommy seized and spasmed.

“Damn it,” Diggle swore, trying to hold Tommy on the bench, Roy practically lying across Tommy’s legs, gripping the far side of the bench with one hand.

“The blade,” Oliver’s eyes narrowed, then, his head shot up. “The _blade_. It’s the League of _goddamn_ Assassins.”

He shoved away from the bench and ran for the beat up old trunk he’d carried from Lian Yu, shoved in a corner by the spare cot.

Diggle watched him go, pressing more weight on Tommy to hold him steady, Roy grunting as he caught a knee in the gut. “Poison? You think that island shit’ll work if we don’t know what it is?”

Oliver threw open the trunk, snatched out a bottle of thick green paste, yanking the stopper as he strode back to Tommy’s side. His brows were lowered like thunderheads, eyes snapping electrically with desperation. “It’ll work.” He stopped at the bench. “It _has_ to work. Felicity. I need to get this in his mouth.”

She didn’t even hesitate. Scooting around Digg’s side, she reached for Tommy’s head, sliding one hand under his skull and wrapping the fingers of the other around his jaw. His teeth were clenched tight. “Damn it, Tommy, you stubborn son of a _bitch_.”

Using both hands, she worked fingertips into his mouth, between his teeth—a sick lurching in her gut as the thought unbidden whispered that Talia might have done this to him last—and pried apart his jaws. Oliver tipped in a generous measure of the greenish-brown paste, and Tommy choked, coughing.

“Shit,” Oliver hissed. “Close his mouth.”

Felicity gritted her teeth and did her best to hold Tommy’s mouth closed. He gagged, moaning low in his throat, eyes fluttering open, rolling—catching on Felicity’s face, unseeing. Oliver pinched Tommy’s nose shut, and at last, he swallowed.

Tears in her eyes, Felicity released his face and staggered back a half step, holding her hands at waist-height, feeling—monstrous.

For five long, long seconds, they all watched Tommy as his convulsions eased and finally stopped.

Panting, sweat slicking his temples, Oliver looked up and met Felicity’s eye. “He’s going to be okay. That should counteract the poison. Felicity, it saved his life.”

Belatedly, she realized she was crying. Gasping, she dashed the tears from her cheeks with the backs of her hands.

 _Saved his life_.

For how long? How could _anything_ possibly be okay?

Diggle and Roy bustled around Tommy, sewing up the gash in his side.

Felicity stared as Oliver fell back, running shaking hands backward over his face—an image that suddenly echoed with the realization of familiarity, and that she had seen it so often in Oliver, but most _recently_ in Tommy.

Stomach clenching like a fist, lungs feeling far too small, Felicity wondered how long it would take for Oliver to wish he’d let the poison have Tommy.

How long it would take—how much _information_ , how much _truth_ it would take—for Oliver to regret saving Tommy’s life this time.

Oliver took a long look at Tommy as he circled the head of the bench towards Felicity. He still looked conflicted—torn, confused—but there was such a tender _gratitude_ in his eyes. This dearest friend whose face he never thought he’d see again.

Nausea rose in Felicity’s stomach, pushing up her throat.

Clapping a hand over her mouth, she choked it back.

Looking at her in concern, Oliver moved towards her, hands out.

Reflexively, she backed away; he flinched.

“Someone,” Laurel’s voice shook with a simmering, surface calm as she stepped up on Felicity’s left, “had better start explaining. Right. _Now_.”

Oliver stopped four feet from them and looked at Laurel. His mouth opened, he drew a breath; head shaking back and forth infinitesimally—the motion of denial, disbelief so small he likely didn’t know he was doing it—he said nothing.

Letting out a burst of frustration through her teeth, Laurel whirled on Felicity—who staggered sharply away from her, gasping at the sudden motion. “Then _you_ tell me!” She jabbed a finger towards the med bench. “ _How is that Tommy!_ ”

“I—I—he—” Felicity wrapped her arms tightly around her waist, one hand snaking up to cover her breastbone, teeth chattering as the words backed up in her throat, tangled around her tongue. “Please… it’s just—”

“Laurel,” Oliver interjected, low and soft, one placating hand raised as he looked back and forth between the two women, sidling a step closer. “Back off. Felicity, it’s okay—”

“Back off?” Laurel spat, eyes wide, a tear dashing down her cheek. “Ollie, it’s _Tommy_! We buried him. How can it be Tommy?”

Felicity backed up another step. Another. Head shaking back and forth, she opened her mouth and fought to _breathe_. When did the foundry get so _small_? So crowded? The walls were somehow both too far away and closing in tight, the ceiling seeming to lower oppressively overhead, waiting to crush her. Every motion seemed too sharp, too hostile, and her ears filled with a garbling static of rushing blood—pulse throbbing in her temples—and her own sharp, high-pitched gasps—underscored faintly by a growing, piercing _whine_ …

“I can’t—” Felicity gasped, her strangled voice cutting through Laurel and Oliver’s tense argument. Her eyes rolled wildly back and forth between them—behind them to Digg and Roy turning towards her in concern—to Tommy laid out like a fresh corpse on that metal slab between them. “I c-can’t…”

Dark spots began to crowd in around the edges of her vision and, wobbling, pitching a little unsteadily, she turned and bolted for the alley door. Shouts rang behind her but she ignored them—couldn’t even make out the _words_ —as she yanked on the handle. Muggy, warm air hit her face as she squeezed through the door as soon as she’d opened it wide enough.

It scraped heavily shut behind her.

The door was recessed into the thick cement wall, and Felicity stood in the threshold beneath the foot-deep overhang, the rough, cool surface of the bricks nipping at the skin of her palms. She clung to the bricks and slowly, slowly sank into a crouch, struggling to breathe in the heavy, damp air.

Her skin buzzed all over, the snapping bite of a low electric current, uncomfortable, unsettling, incessant. Beyond the alley, the city grumbled familiarly—so much _louder_ than she remembered, than she had heard in months.

Tires on uneven pavement, the distant, rumbling bass of vehicle subwoofers. It was late into the night, but in this Glades neighborhood, that meant only a lowering of the volume, not a silence. Sirens wailed faintly some blocks away.

Eyes wet and cheeks both too hot and too cold, Felicity squinted into the orange-splashed night and tried to pull herself together. To master her lungs and their function.

To _focus_.

As she clenched her jaws and hissed forced, measured breaths through her teeth, Felicity’s right hand rested against her thigh, and her fingertips began to tap rhythmically against her knee.

_Tap tap tap_

_One two three_

She squeezed her eyes shut and pounded her fingers more firmly against her kneecap, until the touch fell heavy and—familiar—grounding—

Just as she began to breathe clean and even, a soft rap sounded on the other side of the door, and Felicity jolted, the hand on her knee curling fast into a fist.

Lifting her head, she opened her eyes and blew out a long, shaking breath.

As she rose, leaning heavily on the bricks, the door pulled open an inch, and John’s voice, gentle and calm, asked, “Felicity?”

“Digg,” her own voice cracked quietly, and she turned around slowly as the door pulled a little wider. “It’s—I’m okay.”

Diggle pulled the door open only enough to slip through and join her in the entryway, though he took care to stick close to the opposite side, giving her precious inches of air between them. “Sure,” he nodded, running his gaze over her in quick assessment. “You can understand why we were all concerned.”

She nodded, then shook her head, forcing her chin up and her eyes to find and hold his. “I just… needed some air.”

He nodded understandingly, movements slow and large as he folded his arms loosely around his waist, big hands tucking under his elbows. “I get that. Do you mind if I get some air with you?” He tipped his head towards the door. “Little bit stuffy in there.”

“I—” her voice choked off, emotion swelling in her throat, her chest; sheer, unutterable gratitude for this pillar of a man she was so lucky to count as a friend. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

Diggle relaxed back against the bricks on his side, one ankle crossing over the other. He regarded her calmly, his gaze soft, warm—something full and fond in his eyes. It wasn’t a heavy stare, but still Felicity had to look away.

She let her eyes travel over the wet ground, over puddles and muddy patches and unidentifiable litter.

So much proof of _life_ on just this patch of ground, a stark contrast to the entire static bubble world she had spent the last months existing in.

After several moments, John gently broke the quiet, his head tilted on one side and his question strangely testing. “You want to walk the alley?”

Looking sharply at him, Felicity drew in a breath and looked out at the wider alley. She edged to the border of the recessed doorway, one hand still on the bricks, and peered around the corner, down the close-walled channel to the tall chain link fence that kept the alley private, past the battered green dumpster beyond the fencing, to the slice of sidewalk dimly visible beyond it, a narrow window on a world that seemed suddenly, intimidatingly far too wide.

Something despicably weak and vulnerable shuddered in Felicity’s chest, and she swallowed thickly, shutting her eyes and shaking her head as she backed up to put her spine against the door.

“That’s okay,” Digg’s voice was a comforting murmur, low and welcome. “Another time. Can you handle going back in now?”

Felicity inhaled deeply and looked at the door and tried to picture herself on the other side of it. “I want to. But… Laurel… a-and Tommy. I just…”

“Hey,” Diggle straightened, carefully unimposing for such a large man. “You don’t have to explain anything right now. You’ve been through hell, more than I’m sure we can imagine. We’ve got a lot of questions, but they’ll hold til you’re ready.” He paused until she looked at him steadily. “For now.”

She nodded. She wouldn’t be able to keep her mouth shut forever. She didn’t even _want_ to. She just… didn’t know where to _start_ … and whether it would be a good idea to tell them _everything_. What to keep secret or hold in reserve.

She needed Tommy. She needed him awake to help her explain. To explain _himself_. To help the others understand the threats she and Tommy were pulling into Starling in their wake, to understand the things they had had to do.

She wouldn’t— _couldn’t_ —make Tommy’s excuses and explanations for him.

But she knew—finally, totally—deep inside herself that she didn’t want to see Oliver’s hands around Tommy’s throat for the part he had played in this story.

She needed Tommy _awake_.

She needed time.

And Diggle was telling her she had it—she and Tommy both had it—for _now_.

“Okay,” she whispered, pushing upright. “I’ll go in with you.”

He offered her a small, solemn smile and pushed open the door. Holding it ajar, he stepped aside to let her go first. “Don’t worry. I got your back.”

How she had _missed_ that certainty. Eyes prickling with fresh tears, she took in a breath, nodded, and slipped back through the door.

She and Diggle filed back into a foundry gone far more quiet. Laurel was seated at the bottom of the staircase leading up to Verdant, and though she glanced up at Felicity—her eyes red and wet—she kept her hands knotted in front of her mouth.

Oliver had pulled a chair up beside the medical table, elbows on his knees as he leaned forward, watching over Tommy. His eyes followed Felicity as she moved further into the room, but he remained in his seat, mouth closed. He flicked his gaze behind her to Diggle, and they exchanged some silent conversation concluded by Oliver’s shallow nod.

It struck Felicity how very _tired_ Oliver looked. Tired, and as he looked at Felicity, relieved. And as he looked at Tommy… stunned.

Felicity barred one arm tightly against her stomach and felt queasy.

“Where’s Harper?” Digg asked Oliver.

Drawing in a weary breath, Oliver sat back in his chair and scrubbed his hands backwards over his face. “I sent him on a supply run. He’ll be back shortly.”

Diggle moved over to Oliver and they murmured lowly to each other about Tommy’s vitals, the supplies Roy had been sent for, and other things—but the words slipped through Felicity like ghosts, insubstantial and leaving her chilled in their wake.

Heeled footsteps preceded Laurel’s appearance to Felicity’s left, but it was the light touch on her arm that startled her into awareness.

“Sorry.” Laurel winced, eyes bloodshot, cheeks pale, and brows pinched in concern. “I just—nobody asked you, so you’re probably fine, but… are you okay? I mean, are you hurt?”

Felicity stared at her and blinked slowly.

Laurel waved a hand towards Felicity’s middle. “It’s just—the blood.”

Felicity’s chin snapped towards her chest as she looked down at herself, lifting her arms away from her body. The front of her gray tanktop was stiff and mottled with rust-dark patches and smears, and dried, flaking streaks painted her skin in places along her arms, particularly on her left side—where she had slid under Tommy’s shoulder to help him into the motel, and he’d bled down her side.

Instantly, she could feel every dried, clinging, itching flake, stretching tight across her skin, pulling at the little hairs as she moved.

“Felicity, are you hurt?” Laurel’s tone sharpened in concern, and though she raised hovering hands, she didn’t touch Felicity.

“No,” Felicity answered at a delay, the word coming up from some hollow, distant hole in her, the quiet, numb eye at the center of a brewing storm of horror and panic and fear and disgust. “It’s Tommy’s.”

“T—” Laurel cut herself off with a gasp.

Suddenly, Felicity _needed_ the blood off of her, desperately. Tommy’s blood. On her hands, under her nails, _all over her_. Dressed in League clothes, lungs still full of the stink of their air, body sustained in their captivity, _wearing Tommy’s blood_.

She rubbed her palms roughly against her arms, scraped her fingernails over the crust she could feel gathered in the shelf of her clavicle, scrubbed at her skin so roughly she couldn’t tell if the red left behind was flush or _stain_.

“ _Felicity_ ,” Laurel snapped urgently, firmly grabbing hold of one of Felicity’s wrists.

Felicity gasped and yanked her hand free, head jerking up to stare miserably at Laurel. “I need—I can’t—”

“It’s okay,” Laurel interrupted, gentling her tone. She searched Felicity’s face, scanned down her body. Something dawned softly in her eyes, over her face—comprehension, suspicion… pity. “Let’s—there’s a shower, in the bathroom.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the little bathroom built towards the back of the foundry. Added at Felicity’s insistence when she’d overseen the renovation over a year ago. “Do you want to—?”

“Yes,” Felicity punched the whisper viscerally, the word leaping off her tongue with all the urgency with which she tried to remove the dried blood from her skin. She shifted her weight and her stomach lurched sickly at the clinging pull of her shirt against her chest and stomach. Tears pricked again at the backs of her eyes, sharp and stinging as needles. “ _Please_.”

Laurel ushered her forward with a concerned expression and a hand hovering by her shoulder—a move so bizarrely familiar Felicity stumbled with dizzying deja vu.

“Laurel—? Felicity, are you okay?” Oliver stood up from his chair—the metal feet _grating_ against the bare cement floor and making Felicity cringe—his own expression oddly panicked.

“It’s fine, Ollie,” Laurel told him firmly. “Felicity just wants to get cleaned up.”

“That’s a good idea,” John agreed, arms folding over his chest and chin nodding. “A very good idea. Felicity, we’ve got a go-bag with some of your things stashed back in the van. I’ll go grab that for you.”

The thought of her _own_ things—her own clothes? Maybe her brush, her toothpaste, her toiletries?—sang through Felicity’s chest like the clear, pure, beautiful notes of a flute. She made grateful eye contact with Digg, and he smiled for her.

“Do you need—can I help at all?” Oliver took a step like he’d come around the table, and Felicity stared at him dumbstruck.

“Oliver,” Laurel admonished, softly but emphatically, gently looping her arm behind Felicity’s shoulders. “We’ve got this. Stay with—” her breath hitched, for only a second, “with Tommy.”

Felicity could feel Oliver’s eyes on her as Laurel ushered her into the little bathroom and shut the door behind them.

Felicity ignored Laurel as she opened the cabinet below the sink and rooted around, staring instead around the close confines of the well-known little room.

She should feel trapped. Another tiny room, another body crowded in too small a space with her.

She wasn’t sure if it was that Laurel was a woman, or that _this_ small space was a dreamed-of piece of home, but Felicity felt—safe, here. The door was closed and she _knew_ this space and it was neither too large nor too open and—everything that was so much, _too_ much, was on the other side of the door from her. A barrier between Felicity and the overwhelming deluge.

Her life, she realized, was becoming a series of doors, and the most important thing her own ability to open or close them.

“Okay.” With a little clatter, Laurel set a handful of things on the sink counter. “We’ve got soap, some two-in-one generic shampoo/conditioner, a rag, and two towels.”

Felicity turned towards her and surveyed the little collection of Laurel’s findings. Ironically, it was much the same as she had had in her little bathroom in Tommy’s rooms.

Teeth tugging at her lip, Laurel looked her over quickly and pulled in a breath. “Do you need any help with—”

A knock on the door cut her off, and Laurel turned and opened it just a crack. She and Diggle exchanged a few brief, murmured words, and Digg handed in a small purple duffle bag.

Laurel set this on the sink counter and pulled the zip, glancing first at Felicity for permission. She peered into the opening and reported, “There’s some clothes in here, looks like basic stuff—did you pack this yourself? Awesome, god knows I’d hate the idea of any of those guys pawing through _my_ underwear drawer. Oh, looks like some toiletries.”

Felicity blinked rapidly. It had been probably six or seven months since she’d packed that emergency go-bag, and she had utterly forgotten what just-in-case items she’d stashed inside. She cleared her throat. “Will you—will you hand me the toiletries?”

Laurel fished out a small, clear-plastic zip bag with travel bottles of shampoo, conditioner, even bodywash and lotion. Felicity accepted it from her gingerly, plucked out the bottle of shampoo, and unscrewed the top. She lifted the little bottle to her face and inhaled the ripe-fruit scent of her own shampoo. Her eyes closed and her chin trembled, and she screwed the bottlecap back on.

When she opened her eyes, Laurel was watching her with a look of hushed sympathy. Laurel offered her a weak half-smile. “Do you want help getting your hair free?”

Felicity was startled by the offer, and didn’t quite know how to respond. For a moment, she only stared, and tried to parse her feelings. On the one hand, she desperately wanted to be _alone_. Letting people touch her was—hard. She felt raw and vulnerable as a peeled peach, too much change, too much noise, too much expectation and demand pressing in on her from every corner.

And yet… the only other woman she’d seen in months had been Dr. Malik, with her brusque, callous hands and cold eyes. The only people who had touched her had been the doctor, and Tommy, and—

Felicity shuddered, but curled her fingers tightly into her palms. Steeling her spine, she met Laurel’s eye and nodded, and said quietly, “Thank you.”

She turned slowly to put her back to Laurel, pushing her ragged, knotted braid over her shoulder.

Laurel stepped up behind her, and Felicity tensed as she felt the other woman’s fingers take hold of the end of the braid, hesitating before untying the repurposed drawstring holding it together. “Listen,” Laurel said softly, fingers gently unweaving Felicity’s hair, picking free knots and snarls, “I wanted to apologize… for the way I went off on you out there before. I just—I don’t understand how, or why…” Laurel’s voice thickened with tears, cracking. “It’s _Tommy_.”

Felicity’s shoulders hunched, teeth ruthlessly scraping over her bottom lip, back and forth.

Laurel took a deep breath. “I’m not—I’m not going to badger you about that right now. I know… I mean, I can only imagine what you’ve been through. I don’t want to make this harder on you. I—I wanted to _help_.” Laurel’s quiet tone was pleading for Felicity to understand, to forgive her. “Can I ask just… one thing?”

Felicity, head bent forward against the gentle tug as Laurel’s unbraiding got closer to her nape, swallowed down the lump of lead rising in her throat, shoving it back down to her gut where it settled home. “Okay.”

Freeing the last plait, Laurel pulled her fingers down through Felicity’s bedraggled waves one last time before stepping back. When Felicity turned again to face her, Laurel searched her face earnestly. “Will I _get_ answers? Eventually?”

Felicity sighed, instantly weary. “Yes. But Laurel… you may not like them.”

Drawing in a long breath through her nose, Laurel raised her head and, firming her chin, brows straight lines over sharp eyes, and asked, “Is it really Tommy out there?” Despite her attempt at control, Laurel’s eyes glittered with fresh tears. “It’s really him?”

Feeling distinctly cold, Felicity wrapped her arms loosely around herself and chafed her hands absently over her elbows. “Yes. It’s really him.”

Laurel stared at her for several seconds, lips parting. Sucking in a hitching gasp, she tipped her head back, eyes squeezing shut. A tear slipped down her cheek, and Laurel dashed it away, sniffling. Pursing her lips, she exhaled unsteadily and gave a small nod, almost to herself. “Then that’s good enough for now.” She reached for Felicity’s hand, lightly squeezing over her knuckles, darting hazel eyes carefully reading Felicity’s closed-off expression. “Thank you. I’ll give you some space, but I’ll be just out there if you need something and don’t want one of the guys.”

Laurel backed quietly out of the room, and time stuttered.

Peeling the stolen League clothes from her skin—the dry, wincing tug where the blood had glued it tight to the little hairs on her body. Balling up the soft, wireless tan bra and throwing it violently into the corner.

Standing naked in the dry shower, carefully and neatly lining up her toiletries along the inner wall. The fierce, queer joy and relief and _devastation_ at the discovery of the little pink disposable razor capped at the bottom of the baggie.

Water, stinging hot, beating down on her head, slow-rinsing an excessive amount of conditioner from hair that had taken far too long to detangle. Sitting in the bottom of the shower and running the razor with great deliberation up over the curves of her calves, rinsing away the fine, light growth of months.

The ponderous gradual slide of thick lather flowing down between her breasts with the rinse of the water, sliding over her flattened stomach, sharp-ridged hipbones, down thighs and knees and ankles almost alienly smooth. She watched it swirl down the drain, tiny bubbles popping and vanishing between the holes in the grate.

The scented steam and quiet hush of the water enveloped her like thick swaddling, insulating her from—time, the world. Herself. A curious but welcome detachment slid under Felicity’s skin, a layer of protection against the storm that rumbled threats inside her.

When the spray shifted from lukewarm to cold, Felicity got out before the chill could settle back into her bones.

In the steamed-up box of a bathroom, Felicity moved her go-bag to the toilet lid and dug into the duffel, her hands sliding over cotton and denim and rayon, fabrics and textures oft-washed and well-worn, familiar and well-loved.

The tip of her tongue pressed between her lips, she pulled out her clothes and breathed evenly to combat the rising, hot-pressure roar filling her hollow chest. It rose up her throat and snaked thorny fingers into her jaw, locking her teeth as her chin trembled; flooded into the cotton-padded echo chamber of her skull and burned behind her eyes.

There was an unbearable, unspeakable relief in pulling on her own underwear. The underwire bra felt like an act of defiance.

She dressed in skinny jeans and a soft pink sweater, ruched on one side and gathered in a small bow on her left hip. Her socks were dark blue, patterned with yellow cartoon stars wearing cute smiles, and she gave them a faltering smile back as she pushed her toes into purple slip-on Converse.

She stood straight, settling her weight and flexing her toes and soles against the well-worn impression of her feet inside the shoes. It was a jarring dichotomy of familiar/unfamiliar. Like being home and not quite feeling welcome.

“Okay, Felicity,” she whispered, steeling herself. “It’s just a mirror. You looked at yourself this—this morning.”

A sudden dislocation of time impacted her like a speeding semitruck; had it really been less than twenty-four hours? She stared for a blind moment, brows twitching together and lips parting as she tried to marshall the numbers into order.

It had only been hours. _Hours_.

It wasn’t even true morning yet, probably.

Shaking herself with a sharp breath, Felicity set time aside and forced her chin up and shoulders back, turning towards the mirror like a girl in a horror movie who knew the monster was right behind her.

The mirror over the sink was small, portrait-style, the bottom edge a few inches above the counter, bare round vanity bulbs above it. The glass was still softly fogged, thicker around the edges with condensation, water beading and dripping slow, clear lines down the length.

It was clear enough still to see herself.

Not enough to _recognize_ herself.

The clothes belonged to Felicity Smoak. Colorful, cute, quirkily fashionable.

But the body in them left them too roomy. The collar gaped a little. The jeans that used to be snug and fitted were a little baggy.

Her face was as bleached and faded as her clothes were vibrant and bright. Bloodless lips and hollowed cheeks. The most color in her face was in the shadows bruising blue half moons under her eyes.

Eyes that _screamed_.

The distant, muffled screaming that locked in the throats of nightmares, frantically chained and hoarsely squeezed through pinholes.

She was an echo without a sound.

Felicity slammed her eyes shut and bit her lips between her teeth, breathing rapidly through her nose as she reached out and gripped the edge of the sink, white-knuckled.

Slowly, slowly, she mastered her breathing. Tipping back her head, she opened her eyes and looked at the low ceiling, lips releasing from her teeth. She lowered her head and met her own gaze anew. Color blushed her bitten lips, emotion flushing pink into her cheeks.

But it would fade.

Fade like the dye from her hair, mousy light brown from roots to the tops of her ears, dull gold to the split ends. Her hair, freshly wet still, hung in slick waves, already slowly tightening into curls.

In the mirror, her eyes sharpened, and determination set her chin and slanted her brows. Motivation—a plan—made her motions strong and deliberate as she leaned over to grab the toiletry bag from atop the toilet lid.

Jaw firm, Felicity pulled out a little bottle of leave-in conditioner, a travel comb, and the minimal makeup she had so carelessly packed into her emergency supplies.

Though, really, she was thankful for that carelessness.

This _felt_ like an emergency, even if it was one the Felicity of six months ago would never have conceived of.

She squirted the leave-in conditioner into her hands and massaged it gently into her hair, startled by how greasy it felt at first after months without it. But after she carefully pulled the comb through her hair from roots to ends, three passes, it felt soft. It felt right.

Without anything to dry her hair, it would air-dry in wild curls, still, but with the conditioner, it would at least be easier to tame, less prone to knots and tangles.

It was a start.

The beginning to feeling human again.

And to push her further into a feeling that wouldn’t settle yet, Felicity leaned over the sink and dotted a little concealer under her eyes, over a red spot near her hairline. She brushed a little blush over the apples of her cheeks and applied a pink-tinted balm to her mouth.

The girl left in the mirror when she zipped the baggie closed again was a strange but welcome bridge back to reality. To life.

Swallowing hard, she packed up her go-bag neatly again. Refusing to look at them again, she left the discarded boots and clothes where they’d been shed.

Hefting the duffel by the strap, she turned at last and twisted the knob on the bathroom door, the soft _click_ of the lock unbolting setting the butterflies in her stomach astir.

But she opened the door.

Felicity crossed the room in quick, short steps, staring straight ahead at the goal of the computer desk and her chair— _her_ chair, black and wheeled and ergonomically designed with rounded cushions; no armchair with a deep seat and high arms, no waiting hardback book—and pretended not to be aware of the positions of the others, of every eye in the room tracking her.

(Every eye but two.)

Her shoes squeaked on the concrete through a silence punctuated only by the quiet beeping of the EKG monitoring Tommy’s heartbeat, and Felicity wondered briefly what conversation her reentry into the room had murdered.

She reached the desk—heart a little more broken to see the dark monitors, to not be greeted by the welcome, buzzing hum of highly-calibrated machines, the beating heart, the pumping lungs, the electric brain of their operation. One hand on the desk’s edge, she set her go-bag beneath it, tucked just within easy reach.

She wanted it handy in case of—

Well. In case.

She studiously ignored the others as she turned her chair to face the room, her fingers trailing over the smooth upholstery covering the round cushions along the back. He hand settled on the arm, firm, sturdy plastic.

She’d liked, sometimes, to think of this chair as her throne. The seat of power from which she ruled the electronic underpinning of Starling City and struck fear into the hearts of her enemies.

It had been quite some time since she’d felt that powerful. So long that she had been the one afraid.

Rolling her lips between her teeth, Felicity stepped in front of the rolling chair and braced her palms against the arms, knees bending.

Her ass had barely hit the seat before the alley door beeped with the access code and clanked open, and Felicity found herself pushing back to her feet on instinct.

Jaw clenching, eyes darting around the room—Oliver staring at her, making her cheeks heat, Laurel and John facing the door—she sat firmly back down.

Roy struggled through the door, burdened with two heavy duty black duffels and—three white paper sacks of fast food. As he muttered irritably and kicked the door shut, the smell of hot grease and salt wafted across the space to Felicity’s nose, and her stomach contracted in a sharp pang of hunger.

Saliva flooded her mouth, and she swallowed thickly, fingers tightening on the chair arms.

“Somebody wanna give me a fucking _hand_ with all this shit?” Roy griped, jaw clenched mulishly as he swept a glare around the room and strode forward. His eyes passed over Felicity at the computer desk, then tracked back, widening. He rocked to a stop on his feet, lips parting—and then spreading into a slow, surprising grin. “God damn, that’s a sight for sore eyes.”

Felicity’s own mouth fell open, and something sharp and sweet lanced through her chest, flushing her cheeks and making her eyes hot. Roy held her eye a moment longer, still smiling, then nodded, turning as Digg stepped up and reached out for one of the duffels.

Quietly, muzzily pleased and grateful, Felicity let herself lean back into the chair’s familiar embrace, relaxing just a little. She watched in silence—awash in the distant, warm fuzz of contentment that almost ached for its long absence—as Oliver rose from Tommy’s bedside vigil and clustered with John and Roy by the weapons bench to begin sorting through the supplies Roy had fetched. Several items went to restock the medical supplies—blood bags, clear plastic sacks of saline, sterile bandages and suture kits, small glass bottles of neatly labeled drugs Felicity couldn’t read from this distance—and others went into the ammo chests.

Laurel, seated again at the bottom of the stairs, rose tiredly to her feet. “I hope that’s breakfast.”

Snorting amusement, Roy didn’t look up, elbows deep in the third duffel bag, and confirmed, “Grub’s up.”

Hesitating only a moment, Felicity rose as well and joined Laurel as she converged with the boys and reached for the fast food bags. Laurel pulled out greasy wax-paper wrapped breakfast biscuits—sausage, egg, bacon, egg and cheese—and salty sleeves of triangular hashbrowns.

Licking her lips, Felicity reached for an egg and cheese biscuit when Digg glanced over—and did a double take.

“Hey, hold up. Not that.”

Felicity paused, her fingers just curled over the top of the warm, wrapped biscuit, and lifted her head to stare at Diggle, hackles raising. “Excuse me?”

Digg winced, turning fully to face her. Brows pinching, Oliver shifted his focus to them, but beside her, Laurel very carefully wasn’t looking at them. Felicity kind of appreciated it.

“I just mean—Felicity, what have you been eating? Back there?”

Heat flashed over Felicity’s face, burned up the back of her neck, and the corners of her mouth pulled down in a scowl. “Not enough. Pretty sure that’s obvious.”

She glanced pointedly down at her jeans, looser than they should be.

Oliver’s eyes slid over her, anguished.

John just looked in her face, chagrined but patient. “Yeah, but _what_ were they feeding you?”

Jaw clenched, Felicity pulled in a long breath through her nose and tried to tamp down the fire that wanted to roar up in her chest. “Ham and cheese sandwiches. White bread. Chips. Apple slices. For the first two months. After that…” The skin around her eyes pinched as she fought the urge to look over at Tommy. “There was more variety. Simple stuff, mostly.”

Digg braced his hands on the table and leaned a little towards her, his eyes sympathetic in a way that was distinctly irritating. “Anything greasy?”

Felicity opened her mouth, jaw tense, but it hung that way, wordless, until finally she snapped her jaw shut and grumbled through her teeth. “No.”

Diggle just nodded like he’d expected as much; they both ignored Oliver’s quiet sound of pain. “You’re gonna need to ease back in carefully. Too much too fast and you’ll just get sick. I’ve seen it before.” One corner of his lips tucking sorrowfully, he looked away and reached back into another of the bags and rummaged for a moment. He withdrew a pita wrap. “Tomato basil scrambler. This should be fine.”

Chin set mulishly, Felicity stuck her hand out flat and glared at him. Diggle bore it well, setting the pita wrap in her hand. Petulantly, Felicity snatched up a hashbrown in her other hand and clutched them both against her shirtfront, as if he would try to take either away. She set her weight back on one heel warily. “Nobody dictates what I eat anymore, Digg. I—I have missed… _everything_. _Nobody_ makes my choices anymore.”

Diggle’s lips parted as if she’d struck him a blow, and he raised both hands, palms out. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to push you around. I just wanna help.” She didn’t budge, saying nothing, and he sighed, letting his hands drop. “Really, it’s fine, Felicity. Just _ease_ in, all I’m saying. Don’t binge, but... Eat the hashbrown.”

A sick curdle of anger and shame, desperation and sorrow sat heavy in her gut. She didn’t want to fight with John. She knew, she _knew_ he wasn’t—he wasn’t trying to control her.

He was just trying to help.

But even that well-meaning order had just felt so… oppressive. Stifling. Strangling. It made her need to fight, to struggle. To claw and bite and hiss.

Swallowing thickly, tone shaky and sulky, Felicity muttered, “I don’t need your permission,” and turned away.

She felt them watching her as she scurried back to her little safe haven, watching her as she sat in her chair and turned half away from them. She refused to look back.

A moment later, the hashbrown raised almost to her lips, footsteps scuffed across the cement towards her. Back tensed, she waited.

Oliver moved into her line of vision by the corner of the desk. His face was a mask, carved so carefully, but still plainly miserable. In one hand, he held two bottles by the neck, one water, one orange juice. In the other hand was a wrinkled wad of paper napkins. He lifted both hands towards her.

An offering.

A choice.

Setting her hashbrown back down by her pita wrap, Felicity carefully selected the orange juice, and held her palm out for the napkins. Oliver deposited them in her hand; his fingertips lingered warm and rough and… pleading against the skin of her palm.

She looked up and held his eyes as he looked at her, head tilted just slightly, lips parted, and let his fingers trail from her wrist, along the knife edge of her hand, across the very tips of her own fingers, before they finally fell away.

He didn’t say anything, and neither did she.

When he walked away, Felicity wheeled the chair closer to the desk and hunched over her food, elbows on the surface, and buried her hands under her hair across the back of her neck.

Turning her head, she looked across the room, at Tommy lying prone and pale and unconscious, and thought about _choices_.

—

Laurel found, despite her hunger and tiredness—almost 24 hours awake, easily 12 hours since her last meal—that she could only pick at her breakfast.

She found herself sneaking looks at Felicity. At her thin frame, the hunch of her back, the two-tone mess of her hair. She was so angry, and so… the only word that felt right in Laurel’s head was _hunted_. Like an animal who had already chewed through its own foot to escape the trap, and found itself bleeding and backed into a new corner.

Laurel hadn’t thought, when the boys had summoned her to the foundry and asked her to wait for them, that they would actually _find_ Felicity. She had believed to her core that it was her sister who would save the day, Sara’s lead that would put the puzzle pieces together.

But it hadn’t been. And now Laurel was worried all over again about Sara’s absence and silence. She should have been here by now. Should have arrived with her viper-deadly girlfriend and the key to Felicity’s disappearance.

But Sara wasn’t here and Felicity was.

Sighing, Laurel cut her glance away from Felicity’s back and stared at her knees, reaching up and threading her fingers through curls that had fallen flat hours ago, massaging the back of her skull wearily.

She would have thought that Felicity’s homecoming would be a happy event. Celebratory.

This felt _anything_ but that.

Perhaps a joyous reunion would have been too much to expect. Felicity had been abducted and held captive, by all accounts, by a cult of _assassins_. It was clear in every cautious movement and furtive glance that Felicity had been through several kinds of hell. Laurel couldn’t even _imagine_ —

Well. There were some things she could imagine, of course. Things that made Felicity flinch away from Oliver and even Diggle. That made it easier for her to let Laurel, a woman she barely knew but a _woman_ , help her with her clothes and her hair. Things Laurel hoped desperately she was wrong about. But she’d seen women come through CNRI with bruises and haunted eyes and hunched shoulders, and the echoes were clear in Felicity.

Clasping her hands behind her neck, rings biting into her skin, Laurel cast one more worried glance at Felicity.

Three months was a long time.

With a shallow breath and a hard swallow, Laurel finally let her eyes cross the room to Tommy.

Because a year and a half was even _longer_.

She stared, tears prickling her eyes and her jaw hurting from clenching it so tight, at Tommy’s face, his head lolled towards her against the metal table. He was so pale. There had been a knife, apparently. Stabbed. He’d lost a lot of blood.

He looked like a ghost.

Laurel wasn’t certain he _wasn’t_ one.

It just didn’t make sense.

She was _sure_ he had died. She couldn’t shake the image of him, limp and colorless except for the blood outside where it should be in, _lifeless_ on a gurney as EMTs loaded him into the ambulance. They wouldn’t let her in with him, though she’d screamed and shouted and threatened. She could remember how _raw_ and full her throat had felt, ripped ragged from fear and grief—she’d known, she’d _known_ when she saw him, known she’d lost him—too tight and constricted as her gorge wanted to rise.

In the span of a week she had lost Tommy in every way she’d ever had him.

It seemed far too impossible that she was being given him _back_.

And if she’d learned anything from Oliver’s return—from Sara’s—

Gifts and curses came in indistinguishable packaging.

Oliver and Sara had come back to her ragged and hollowed and scarred, changed utterly inside and out.

She was ashamed of how _afraid_ she was to discover what changes a false death and a lost eighteen months had made of Tommy.

Pulling her hands from behind her neck, Laurel rested them on her thighs and slowly balled them into fists; cutting-sharp rings biting at her skin, thumbs bent against her knuckles. She straightened her back, threw back her shoulders, lifted her chin. One deep breath. Laurel stood.

She’d never been very good at running from the things that frightened her.

She set her eyes on Oliver, who stood on the opposite side of Tommy’s table, tucking a thick gray blanket around his bare torso. Laurel’s heels clicked steady and quiet against the cement as she strode over to them.

Oliver didn’t lift his gaze from his hands as he gently fit a small, thin pillow under Tommy’s head, though Laurel was sure he was aware of her approach. She stepped right up to the table’s edge—the metal radiating a cold Tommy’s body offered no heat to combat—her hands hovering for a moment, hesitant, before alighting on the very edge of the table.

Tommy’s arm was so close, if he shifted in his sleep, they would touch.

Laurel let her eyes travel the paths she wouldn’t allow her hands—over his face, haggard and white under that dark, rugged stubble; bluish circles under his eyes, and a purpling bruise high on his left cheekbone. A red cut split his upper lip near the corner of his mouth, fresh still. There was a scrape on his throat.

And scars. There was an unfamiliar, thin white line traveling across his left shoulder down over his clavicle. Little scars hid in the dark hair on his forearms, and his hands—almost invisible, but this close, so _many_. Her brows pinched, lips parting; where would _Tommy_ have gotten scars like these?

Laurel’s hand raised, fingers hovering over the back of Tommy’s hand like she would touch them, verify the shiny marks with her fingertips. She set her hand back on cold metal and looked him over again. His face was thinner, but _he_ was not.

How strange.

Captivity had whittled Felicity away, but Tommy—Tommy had been carved.

He had bulked up, filled out. Muscle swelled his shoulders, his chest, his arms. It made no _sense_.

Oliver shifted his weight across the table, and Laurel’s eyes flicked to him, only as high as his chest. He’d come back similarly cut, like a diamond sanded and honed to sharp edges and hard planes.

Oliver. Sara. Tommy.

The emerging pattern, still so murky, knotted up in Laurel’s stomach.

“It’s so weird—like dying gives you abs.” The joke burst weakly from her lips, as if she were trying to draw the memory of Tommy’s jovial personality around her like a blanket—or a shield.

Oliver drew a sharp breath, and she raised her eyes to his, lips pursed in the poor imitation of a smile. Oliver’s twitched in a weary attempt to return the same, but the motion died quickly, and they looked away from each other and to Tommy again, cold and silent between them.

In that moment, Laurel would give _anything_ for him to make jokes about gym memberships in hell in his own voice.

She lifted her hand again, tracing her fingertips in the air next to Tommy’s cheek, still so afraid to touch. She just wanted him to open his eyes.

“I blamed you, you know,” she whispered hoarsely, unsure why she was saying this—unable to not. “When he died. I—I didn’t _know_ I was blaming you. That it was _you_. But the Hood carried him out of CNRI and laid him on the ground, and didn’t say anything, just—just left. I hated him.” She forced her chin up and looked into Oliver’s face; he was watching her with a heaviness of sorrow that was like a gravitational force, crushing him small right in front of her. “I hated _you_.”

“I know,” Oliver answered, just as quiet, just as rough. “I did, too.”

“I just thought,” Laurel found herself gasping, “the Hood saved so many. Saved _me_ so many times. Why not Tommy? Why weren’t you _faster_?” Oliver stood stone-still against the assault of her words, but his eyes flinched with each blow she struck. His face blurred with tears, and she blinked them forcefully away. “But you were just an excuse. It was _me_ I hated.”

She tore her gaze from Oliver’s face and forced herself to look at Tommy, waxy-cheeked and hollow as all of her nightmares. “I was the reason he was there. If it weren’t for me—if I hadn’t—if I’d just _listened_ when…” she covered her mouth with one shaking hand and squeezed her eyes shut. A single slip of salt burned hot down her cheek. “It should have been _me_ , Oliver.”

“ _No_.” Oliver set his hands heavily on the table and leaned across Tommy towards her, brows lowered and eyes burning intently. “Laurel, No. That is—that is the very opposite of what he wanted. It sh—” He jerked his chin to the side, lips pressing thin as he cut himself off. Drawing a sharp breath through his nose, he turned back to Laurel. “Just no, Laurel.”

She swallowed thickly, and though uncertainty churned in her stomach, burned acid flares through her chest—uncertainty, guilt, frustration, incalculable grief—she nodded.

They held each other’s gaze for another long moment, a shared and thorn-pricked tangle stretched between them, over Tommy, biting into them all and connecting them through pain and mistake and regret.

On the table, Tommy twitched, a muffled whimper in his throat as his brows knit together in pain. He shifted under the blanket, head turning one way then the other before he settled. Laurel and Oliver stared down at him with bated breath, but though his eyes twitched restlessly back and forth beneath bruised-looking lids, they didn’t open.

At last, Oliver sighed and eased upright. “I’d better check with Digg and see how much more sedative we can give him. The herbs I gave him will neutralize the poison, but his body still has to flush it from his system.” His eyes flicked to Laurel’s and away again, strangely guilty. “It’s not a painless process.”

“Of course,” Laurel murmured, attention focusing again on Tommy. Oliver lingered for a moment more then walked away. Laurel didn’t watch him go.

She looked down at Tommy and her heart swelled and ached like a broken limb, throbbing around the fracture. He _hurt_ to look at. The rise and fall of his chest, the part of his dry, chapped lips. The realization that her mental picture of him—the image she had carried into sleep so many nights, that had slipped from her in dreams as she woke—had shifted and slid somewhere along the way and no longer exactly matched the precision of his face, real and sharp-edged before her, shredded through her. She had been remembering the point of his nose wrong. Or perhaps the cut of his mouth. In her mind’s eye, had his chin been this dimpled? Had she misremembered the slant of his eyes, the fall of his lashes?

How much of him had she _really_ lost?

And was that truly what had been returned to her?

Licking her lips, Laurel looked down again at his hand, resting palm-down against the table, fingers thick and square-tipped, familiar even marked by stories she’d never known. Hesitating only a breath, she slipped her own fingers beneath his, heart jolting in strange shock at the rough, paper-dry texture of his skin as she fit her hand under his, folding her fingers around it.

Bottom lip caught in her teeth, she squeezed. And waited.

Seconds ticked by, and Tommy didn’t squeeze back.

“Please,” she whispered, a breath in the shape of a word. “Tommy, _please_. Just wake up.” She raised her eyes to his face again, her own beseeching. “Please. Please just look at me.”

His head twitched, chin jerking a millimeter in her direction. His eyes stayed closed.

Laurel shifted her weight closer, the edge of the table pressing unforgiving against her belly. Lifting her free hand, fingers shaking, she brushed the tips across the fringe of dark hair falling across his forehead. Shorter on the sides and back, longer on top, it was a style she’d never seen him in before.

She drew the tip of her middle finger down the cool skin of his forehead, over his temple, along the line of his cheek. “Tommy.”

Still, his fingers lay slack in hers.

She shifted closer again, so her face hovered just over his. “ _Please_ —”

Tommy’s eyes shot open.

He stared straight up at the ceiling, and Laurel jerked her hand free from his with a gasp, startled. Tommy’s eyes focused at the sound, and he blinked, brows twitching as his head shifted on the pillow—and his eyes found hers.

They stared at each other, mirrors of shock and confusion, and Tommy’s lips slowly unglued. His adam’s apple bobbed with a thick swallow, the tip of his tongue darting between his lips as his eyes travelled over Laurel’s face. Finally, in a quiet, desert-dry rasp, he asked, “Laurel?”

Eyes wide, tears hanging on her lashes, Laurel twitched her trembling mouth into a smile. “Tommy. _Tommy_. It’s me. You’re—”

“No,” he interrupted on a growl, brows pulling together like thunderclouds, upper lip pulling across his teeth. “ _No_.”

Face falling, confused, Laurel’s brow knit and she shook her head. “Tomm—”

In a flash, his hand lashed out—and grabbed her by the throat. Laurel choked, squeaking a half-syllable of his name as Tommy leveraged onto his elbow, eyes mad-wide and nostrils flared as he breathed like a lathered racehorse. “Not this time. Not again, not again, _not again_!”

Behind Laurel, there was a clatter of motion and noise—someone calling her name, someone calling Tommy’s—but she could only lock her fingers around Tommy’s wrist, fingernails biting, and stare into Tommy’s blue-burning eyes—full of hatred, full of murder.

“To—Tommy,” she gasped.

He sat up and put his other hand around her throat, oblivious to her tugging hands as he _squeezed_ — “Not again!” Spittle flew from his mouth as he dragged her towards him, his thumbs pressing, _pressing_ at her windpipe—Laurel’s vision began to darken— “No more lies! You can’t fool me again! You’re not her, you’re not _her_!!”

“Tommy!”

Oliver and Diggle appeared in her blackening periphery, reaching for Tommy, Oliver locking an arm around Tommy’s throat from behind—his face a mask of heartbroken fear—Diggle digging his thumbs into the tendons of Tommy’s wrists, forcing his hands open.

Laurel sucked in an agonizing, ragged gasp as an arm locked around her waist, and she tripped over her own feet as Roy dragged her backwards and away to the side, supporting most of her weight as she clutched at her throat and gulped at the air.

And stared at Tommy.

“You’re not her!!” He screamed, face and neck red, veins bulging in his throat and at his temples as he fought Oliver’s hold and Diggle’s hands. “I won’t—I won’t let you do this again!” His voice soared to a chilling, hair-raising pitch, a wail, a bloody threat and sobbing plea. “Not again not again _not again_!”

“Tommy,” Laurel wheezed, sagging in Roy’s arms, her blood running cold and tears streaming free down her face.

“ _Tommy_!!” Felicity stepped into the clear space between Laurel and Tommy, her back straight and head high, fists shaking at her sides.

“ _No_!” Tommy howled, bucking hard against Oliver’s hold. “ _Noooo_!!”

Felicity swore—and darted forward.

Laurel lifted a hand in fear for her, wanting to pull her back, her voice croaking wordlessly in her ravaged throat—but Felicity slipped into the space in front of Tommy around Diggle as if the large man weren’t even there.

“Felicity!” Both men called, desperate, warning—

But Felicity disregarded them utterly, hooking one knee up onto the table by Tommy’s hip. Her hands raised, and she clapped them to either side of Tommy’s face, pulling his head down by force. He fought her hold—and then her fingers flexed, she did _something_ with her nails—he froze. “Tommy!!”

They stared into each other’s faces from inches away, Tommy flushed and wide-eyed, terrified and enraged all at once; Felicity’s face was a storm, jaw squared stubbornly and eyes crackling with determination like lightning. “Tommy. Tommy, it’s me, it’s _Felicity_.”

He stared at her—his hands jerked in Digg’s hold, but Diggle did not release him—and Tommy’s eyes hazed with sudden tears. “Felicity?” He gasped.

“It’s me,” she whispered—echoing in the wide, open foundry. “You’re with _me_. We’re out, Tommy. We got _out_.” Tears slipped from Tommy’s eyes, and Felicity’s thumbs swiped them away from his cheeks just as fast. Her voice shook, fierce with emotion, choked with tears of her own. “We made it.”

“Felicity,” he panted, prayer and confirmation; he searched her face. “Felicity.” Tommy’s hands pulled again at Diggle’s grip, but Digg held fast, shooting a speaking, hard look to Oliver. Tommy tugged harder and moaned, head tossing back against Oliver’s shoulder as his mouth opened with a sob. “No, no, Felicity, _no_.”

Keeping her hold on Tommy’s face, Felicity looked up at Oliver, then Diggle, eyes wide and angry and desperate. “Let him go.”

Oliver looked at her in skeptical worry, grunting as the back of Tommy’s head connected with his clavicle. “Felicity—”

“Let him _go_!” She shouted, then bit her lips as if against her own outburst. “It’s—it’s the drugs, he’s _confused_ , let him go, he won’t hurt me.”

Laurel wrapped her hands tight around Roy’s forearm at her waist even as she strained forward, her heart leaping in fear, fracturing in confusion as Felicity winced but held Oliver’s gaze while Tommy whimpered and moaned protestations.

“Please.”

Oliver squared his jaw grimly and searched her eyes for a long, tense moment.

“Wait,” Laurel whispered, too low for anyone to hear her.

But Oliver tore his gaze from Felicity and looked to Digg, giving him one short, sharp nod of the chin. Diggle loosed an exasperated, disapproving sigh, but he released Tommy’s hands at the same moment Oliver loosened his arm around Tommy’s throat—but didn’t entirely let go.

Instantly, Tommy roared in defiance and fear and grasped at Oliver’s elbow and forearm, knuckles whitening. Diggle jerked in place, holding himself back, hands waist-high and ready as he swore under his breath.

“Tommy!” Felicity snapped, pulling again at his head, forcing him to look at her. His eyelids fluttered, but she lightly slapped at his cheeks and he refocused. “ _Look_ at me. We’re out, we’re ho—”

Felicity bit her lip and looked down. To Laurel’s surprise, a tear slipped down Felicity’s cheek.

Tommy’s hands slid off of Oliver’s arm, and he raised them to cup Felicity’s face. She gasped as his palms curved around her jaw, and an arcing pain lanced through Laurel’s chest as Tommy mirrored Felicity’s earlier gesture and wiped away her tears.

They looked, for a moment, as if the rest of them and the foundry itself had fallen away, and they were the whole world between them. It was strangely and unbearably intimate, a private connection bared raw and illicit for all to see. Laurel struggled not to look away.

“Felicity,” Tommy whispered, the tension melting from his face like a thin wax layer burned away by the flame in his eyes. He looked at Felicity as if for the first time truly seeing her.

His thumbs stroked back and forth across her cheekbones until she met his gaze again, drawing her hands from his face to loosely grasp his wrists. Tommy tipped his head to the side, looking her over. Slowly, he leaned forward, throat pressing into the crook of Oliver’s arm, brows drawing tight and mouth flattening into a thin line. When his forehead was nearly touching Felicity’s—and she strained strangely against his palms, at his wrists, as if forcing herself not to pull away—he drew in a long and careful breath, his voice rumbling low—just for her. “Felicity.”

A muscle leapt in his jaw.

His fingers tightened against Felicity’s face.

Alarm shocked up Laurel’s spine and a warning charged too-fast up her throat, catching, sticking—

Tommy dragged Felicity in a halting step til her forehead bumped his, his eyes bright, intense as lanterns. His lips skinned back from his teeth, and he growled, “ _Run_.”

Tommy _shoved_ , and Felicity stumbled, fell backward, gasping, as Tommy rammed an elbow backward into Oliver’s ribs, scrabbling for Oliver’s hand and pulling back on his thumb. “Run! Felicity, _run_! I won’t let them—”

His raving choked off with a gurgle as Oliver, teeth gritted, tightened his hold around Tommy’s throat anew.

“Oliver, don’t!” Laurel reached towards them, afraid of that gleam in Oliver’s wild eyes—frightfully similar to the one in Tommy’s, red-rimmed and rolling.

Oliver grunted as Tommy threw his weight forward, trying to get off the table.

“Diggle!” Oliver hissed tersely, struggling to haul Tommy bodily backward. “Roy!”

Felicity stood back, hands clasped over her mouth and body shaking. Roy released Laurel—leaving her unsteadily retaking her own feet—and rushed forward as Diggle wrestled Tommy’s legs back onto the table, swearing and grunting as he caught a foot in the gut.

Oliver and Digg pinned a thrashing, howling Tommy to the table—slurring enraged, incoherent threats interspersed with broken, terrified pleas—while Roy hurriedly tore open the medical cart.

“No,” Felicity whispered, taking a step forward, hands sliding to press against her breastbone. “Oh god.”

“Hold him fucking _still_ ,” Roy snapped, shoving in next to Oliver and placing one hand on Tommy’s jaw, shoving his face aside to expose his neck.

“We’re _trying_ ,” Oliver barked in return—and then sucked in a shocked breath as Tommy went corpse-still, stiff and trembling.

Laurel choked out a soft, painful sob. Tommy stared with eyes so wide and round, the blue of his irises small and floating lost in the whites. His eyes locked on Felicity, his face cut with fear in lines sharp and raw as wounds—and broken, despairing defeat.

“Please,” he breathed.

Roy slid the needle into Tommy’s neck, depressed the plunger, and emptied the syringe.

Tommy twitched and whimpered as the needle carefully withdrew—but he didn’t fight.

He stared at Felicity, eyes wide and wet, tears dashing across his face, dripping onto the table. “Please.”

Felicity shook her head, crying as well. “I’m sorry.”

Laurel felt sick.

Felicity didn’t look away from Tommy’s face as it began to slack, held his gaze until his eyes rolled back, the lids fluttering shut. When his body relaxed, limp beneath Oliver’s and Diggle’s and Roy’s pressing, heavy hands, Felicity squeezed her eyes shut and turned away, bending over her stomach as if in pain.

Laurel traded her stare back and forth from Felicity, who groped for her chair and sat in it heavily, to Tommy on the table; shell shocked, throat sore and burning, her heart beat hollow.

Gifts and curses came in the same packaging, she knew. Sometimes at the same time.

What had they brought home?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ;) The quote under the graphic (made by always_a_queen) is also a link to a 42-song Long Way Down Part 3 YouTube playlist, if you're into that kind of thing.


	2. Tear Down Every Wall (Just to Keep You Warm, Just to Bring You Home)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enormous thanks of course to always_a_queen, StoriesOfImagination, and Ohemgeeitscoley. These ladies are a blessing.

Blood painted Oliver’s hands scarlet.

The bright red splashed color on the gray table, puddled on the gray cement floor.

Tommy lay on the table, still at last, colorless as a black and white photo but for the livid gash, freshly resewn along his side. And the crimson smears on his skin. Oliver carefully erased them with a wet sponge, his back to the room, his eyes focused intently on his work and jaw clenched tight.

But his chin trembled. His fingers shook.

Tommy’s screams rang in his ears.

But after the fresh injection of sedatives had taken Tommy under, a hush had fallen over the foundry like a tomb. There had been only the terse, quiet scuffle as Oliver and John and Roy worked to restitch the wound Tommy had torn open, to reinsert his IV where it had ripped free from his elbow in his struggle. The emergencies dealt with, Roy and Digg had faded back, and Oliver had gruffly taken over the rest.

He turned to the tall, wheeled tray beside him and dipped the sponge into a waiting, shallow bowl of water, squeezing and twisting it in his fists.

Bursts of red clouded the water, darkness spreading, infecting the clarity.

Ripples travelled across the surface, and in them Oliver saw Roy’s face. Slade’s. Snarls of rage and mad eyes full of hatred.

How many more friends would his life bring ruin to?

At times, Oliver felt he carried a sickness in him. A contagious violence that tainted everyone he loved, everyone he touched, twisting through them with roots and shoots poison-black with corruption.

Wringing the excess moisture from the sponge, he turned his attention to Tommy’s face, where a trace of dried, flaking rust-brown darkened the light beard on his jaw. Oliver gently dabbed at it with sponge until he left Tommy’s face pale, clean.

What a mockery.

As if his hands could leave Tommy _clean_.

A heavy lump in his throat, Oliver swallowed thickly and set aside the sponge, resting his palm against Tommy’s cheek. Real.

But miracles and damnation were both real.

Pressing his lips tightly together, Oliver let his fingers brush through the hair at Tommy’s temple and bent at the waist til his forehead met Tommy’s. Eyes squeezing shut, he rested there just a moment and tried to hold onto the idea of a _miracle_.

When he straightened, shoulders rolling back and chest swelling with a deep breath, he turned to face the room and opened his hands for damnation.

John and Roy stood together by the weapons bench, speaking quietly, postures tense and tight. At the foot of the staircase again sat Laurel, one hand resting lightly against her throat, eyes unfocused and staring into her lap. Oliver winced to see the red mottling the skin of her neck already. Tommy had had his hands around her throat for seconds—less than a minute—but she would wear bruises for days.

That damage, at least, would fade.

The haunted look in her eyes would take longer.

But the confusion he found there—confusion and fear and worry that reflected his own—that could be answered much sooner.

Turning his head towards Felicity’s tech station, he found her curled in her chair—a sight that struck him like a brick to the chest, impacting sweetness with the ache—feet in the seat and knees drawn up, her arms looped loosely around her legs. Her hands rested at her ankles, the fingers of one hand toying absently with the laces of her left shoe.

She was watching him, face drawn and eyes bright and alert.

Oliver cleared his throat. “Felicity.”

She stared at him, waiting, but the others turned their attention to him and he cut them a quick, inclusive glance, meeting each set of eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he began softly. “I know this is hard. But after—” his voice caught, tripped in his throat. He drew a long breath through his nose. “After what just happened. With Tommy. We need you to give us some answers.”

Unfolding his arms from his chest, Diggle stepped forward, head tilted to one side and eyes on Felicity warm and measured. “You don’t have to tell us the whole story right now. But there are things we need to know.”

Felicity’s hands curled in around her ankles, knuckles blanching as she tightened her fingers around the bones. Swallowing hard, she nodded, eyes dropping from Digg’s gaze, skating across the floor.

Laurel stood, one hand on the stair rail, and lifted her head high—the marks on her throat exposed. Chin firm, she spoke with a calm that shook only a little. “You’re the only one who can tell us. What _happened_ to him?”

Felicity’s gaze darted to Laurel and away, then back again. Her mouth opened, cheeks flushing with color as aborted words started in her mouth twice, three times. Finally, she turned her head away, squeezed her eyes shut, and drew a deep breath. Slowly, she let go of her ankles and put her feet flat against the floor, hands taking tight hold of the arms of the chair. “I don’t know all of it.”

Laurel and Oliver looked at each other, but Felicity continued.

“I probably don’t know _most_ of it. I—I just…” She let go of one of the chair arms and rubbed uneasily at her sternum, biting her lip as she stared at the floor in front of her toes. “We were only together the last month. He’s—He, um…”

Her voice shook with tears and she broke off, breathing quickly and shutting her eyes.

John shot Oliver a worried look, taking another hesitant step towards Felicity, one hand raised. “Hey. Take it slow. Tell us what you can—what we _need_ to know right now.”

Felicity looked up at him, eyes shining with tears—Oliver’s gut twisted, and he clenched his hands into fists by his sides to keep from going to her—and she nodded. Quickly, she looked away again, bottom lip tucking into her mouth and brow drawn up tight.

“They hurt him.”

Laurel gasped softly, and Felicity glanced over at her.

Fixing her gaze on the alley door, she went on. “They did—something, messed with his mind. I know they tortured him.” Oliver’s eyes widened; hot acid burned in his stomach, splashed up the back of his throat. “He said sh—that they made him believe things. Played with his memories.” Her hand sliding up to rub over her clavicle, she inhaled slowly. “I think that’s why he thought we were still—still there. He thought you were—that Laurel, you were, um…”

“A hallucination?” Roy offered, hands braced on the weapons bench as he frowned thoughtfully.

“Some kind of test, maybe?” Diggle offered, scrubbing his hand over his chin. “That the League was tricking him?”

Felicity looked back and forth between them, hesitating, then nodded carefully.

“But why?” Laurel asked, bewildered. “Why would they do this to _Tommy_?”

Felicity looked at her. “I don’t know.” She turned her head to Tommy, brows pulled together, mouth pinched into a tight, worried frown. “I’m not sure he did, either.”

“Felicity…” Oliver drew her attention again almost reluctantly, a cold, liquid heaviness squirming in his gut, poisonous mercury. “They did more than torture him, didn’t they.”

It wasn’t a question.

Eyes wide, cheeks blanching, she nodded.

Feeling as if he held a hot iron poker and was digging it slowly into a wound, Oliver licked his lips and forged on, “When he woke up, the way he fought.” He looked down at his feet, his memory flickering like a highlight reel through years of boyish tussles, roughhousing, sloppy fist fights in school hallways and parking lots and bars. The reel ended starkly on Tommy in blue in the bar above their heads, his face full of anger and so much _hurt_ ; his fist swinging wide for Oliver’s face; the scuff of the cement under Oliver’s feet as he stepped aside and let Tommy crash and skid across the floor. “That’s new.”

Felicity bent over her knees, hands sliding under the hair at the back of her neck. She nodded.

Laurel turned to face him. “You think he’s like you now?” Oliver’s throat bobbed with guilty shame at the way she said “like you.” He thought he knew what she meant. “Like Sara?”

Oliver opened his mouth, not really sure what to say.

“They made him do things for them,” Felicity spoke instead, softly, an odd reluctance sticking the words to the roof of her mouth like peanut butter. “It’s… complicated.”

“Complicated _how_?” Roy asked warily.

Felicity’s eyes squeezed shut, her head tipping away from them all, shoulders hunching.

She looked, to Oliver, like she was waiting to be hit.

The realization landed like a blow on him instead.

“I think—I think some of this should wait,” Felicity said with heat, insistent. “Until he’s awake.”

“But is he going to be in a state to explain things himself when we wakes up?” Diggle prodded gently but firmly. “If he’s having violent delusions, he’s not exactly going to walk us rationally through the year and a half we all thought he was under the dirt of Starling Memorial Cemetery.”

Laurel’s breath hissed through her teeth, too angry to be a gasp, and she turned and glared at Digg, who didn’t look at her. Oliver realized his hands were hurting and slowly uncurled his fists.

Felicity still didn’t look at any of them, her hair half hiding her profile, but Oliver could see the stubborn jut of her chin. “He was hurting, and drugged, and _poisoned_. He’ll come around.”

“Are you sure?” Oliver asked—pleaded, really. He wanted her to reassure him. He wanted to hear she was _certain_ his best friend was inside that wild-eyed animal that had nearly busted his ribs.

“He might not, Felicity,” Diggle warned, stepping towards her. “You said he’s been tortured, he should have been _dead_ , and with god knows what else you two went through in that place, he—”

“He _has to_!” Felicity shouted, turning sharply in her chair to glare at John. “He—he’s going to wake up, and he’s—he has to—he _has_ to…”

Her wide eyes, rounded with desperation, welled with tears that spilled fast down her cheeks, dashing over the flat edges of her mouth, lips white and thin with anger. Oliver stared, stunned by how fiercely Felicity seemed to care for Tommy. He didn’t think they’d really even known each other before—

Before Oliver let Tommy die.

Felicity scrubbed the wet from her cheeks with both hands and took in deep, shaky breaths.

Digg’s posture softened, and he ran a hand wearily over his hair. “I’m sorry. I pushed too hard. We just need to know what to expect.”

Felicity’s bitter laugh cracked through the room like brittle, broken glass, and Oliver flinched. “I don’t really have a handbook for what happens next, Digg. I don’t—I don’t know. I can’t tell you.” She looked away, expression crumpling into guilty misery. “There’s just too much.”

“Just tell me one thing,” Laurel said, speaking quickly and apologetically, her voice low and raspy from the bruising beginning to mottle her throat. She stepped forward, hands out in front of her and fingers splayed, but Felicity looked at her cagily. “I just need to know _one_ thing. Is he really still Tommy?”

Felicity looked at her and there was—pity. She laughed softly, almost to herself. “Yes,” she sighed at last. “It’s still Tommy. He’s the same person. But don’t make the mistake that—” she cut off, and Oliver’s eyes narrowed in confusion as she folded her lips, released them, took a deep breath and started again. “Just because it’s _still Tommy_ , he’s still the same person… don’t expect that means he isn’t _different_. That he hasn’t changed.”

Laurel held her gaze for a long moment, her hands falling to her sides in something like surrender. Finally, she nodded, all at once looking utterly exhausted.

Laurel turned and met Oliver’s eye. “I have to go now,” she whispered.

“Laurel,” he reached for her.

She backed up a step, hands raising as if to ward him off. Oliver dropped his hand. “No. I’m wearing yesterday’s clothes and I’ve been awake for over thirty hours. I’m supposed to go into the office in—” she glanced at her wrist, turning it to see her watch, and her eyes shuttered with incredible weariness, lips pinched bitterly. “In two hours. I have to go, Ollie.”

Her eyes skated sideways, ricocheted off of Tommy. “I can’t be here.”

Laurel spun on her heel and headed for the stairs. Oliver stepped to follow without thought—to needlessly warn her not to tell anyone about Tommy? To thank her for her help? To reassure himself she would be okay?—but Diggle leaned into his path, one hand up and lips pressed tight, head shaking.

Oliver looked at him and then away, sighing as Laurel’s steps clattered up the staircase, the door clanging heavily shut behind her.

Oliver shuffled backward, head bent, hand running over the back of his head.

All at once, he was exhausted.

As if the crush of the night’s events had suddenly settled on them all, John cleared his throat and firmly suggested, “Maybe we should follow her lead.”

A small scuff drew Oliver’s eye to Felicity; she had stiffened, brows arched and pulled together in alert wariness.

“I could definitely use a few hours,” Roy admitted. He glanced at Felicity. “Probably we all could.”

“I’m not leaving,” Felicity interjected quickly, looking at them as if they were being ridiculous. “We can’t just leave Tommy here alone.”

“And we won’t,” Digg rushed to reassure her. “But you more than the rest of us could probably use a real sleep for a bit. We can take shifts so there’s always somebody with him.”

Felicity frowned like she might protest further.

Diggle shook his head. “Look, I get it. I do. You don’t even have to put it in words, I _get_ it. Leaving him right now is gonna be tough. But he’s going to be out for a while, and honestly, Felicity, not to undersell you but you look like a stiff breeze might knock you over right now. Sleep. A real bed. Rest somewhere safe. Yeah?”

Felicity stared at him, wide eyed, and swallowed.

“I’ll take first shift,” John offered.

Roy picked one hand up off the weapons bench, raising it like a volunteering student. “I can take second. I can grab a few hours' shut eye and be fresh.” He smirked jovially at Felicity, winking. “I’m young, I can take it. All you old folks gotta turn in.”

A beat skipped—the scratch in the record—where Felicity might have, once, rolled her eyes and teasingly reminded him of their short age gap. She only looked back and forth between Roy and Diggle, chewing the inside of her cheek.

Finally, her gaze bounced off of Oliver. Hushed, confessional, she said quietly, “I can’t just go home.”

“No,” Oliver agreed, straightening and crossing half the distance to her. “Not yet. But you don’t have to. You can come home with me.”

Her eyes snapped to him and stayed, a startled stare.

“Please,” Oliver continued, carefully damming back the needy desperation behind the word. Still, traces slipped between his fingers and bled into his tone, staining his face.

“It’s a good idea,” John supported gently, arms folded loosely. “We should stick together a bit for now. Besides, if Tommy wakes up before you come back, I can just call Oliver and he can bring you right over.”

With fingers twisting into knots, she caved. “Okay. Just—just for a few hours.” She turned her head again to pin Oliver with her gaze. “We’ll come back after just a little sleep. Right?”

Oliver nodded.

He doubted he could stay away from Tommy too long anyways.

“Well,” Roy stood straight and rubbed his hands together with a clap. “If Digg’s taking first watch, I’m gonna,” he jerked a thumb towards the door and made a clicking sound with his mouth. Turning to Diggle, he asked, “What, four, six hours?”

John dug at the inside corner of his eye with his thumb and turned his wrist to check the time. “Yeah, man. Like ten works for me.”

Roy answered with an acknowledging chuck of his chin, clapping Diggle’s shoulder as he passed him and headed for the door. He looked back just before exiting, pausing one moment to meet Felicity’s eye. He hesitated on the threshold, holding the door open, and offered her one more smile.

Felicity made a valiant if weary effort to return it.

“Should’ve made him take first shift,” Diggle muttered as the door closed behind Roy. “Kid’s got more energy than a can of Redbull.”

With Roy’s exit, the life seemed to go out of the room. There was a quiet, tense tiredness strung through the remaining three, a thin and trembling thread. And behind them, Tommy lay like a vision of death.

Swallowing hard, Oliver looked away from him and crossed to Felicity. She looked up at him, and Oliver wondered if he had ever seen her face so blank and guarded. “I’m just going to clean up. Change. Then we can go.”

She nodded.

Feeling queerly as if he were admitting some defeat— _defeat_ , of all things, on the night that had brought Felicity home, that had returned Tommy from _death_ —Oliver turned his back and closed himself in the bathroom.

—

While Oliver sequestered himself in the bathroom, Digg, studiously not staring at Felicity, went over to check on Tommy.

It was weird. Really, _weird_ was an understatement.

John had never really thought much of the kid. Not that he’d thought poorly of Tommy Merlyn—no more poorly than his rich, entitled white privilege warranted—but he hadn’t paid the guy a whole lot of attention before his death.

He was Oliver’s footloose best friend, another pain in the ass. He’d had a smart mouth, when he wasn’t putting his foot in it, and he’d struck Diggle originally as flighty and shallow, if unswervingly loyal. In his position as Oliver’s bodyguard—and eventually, partner in crimefighting—he’d had enough exposure to the younger Merlyn to see a little past the shiny surface.

The kid had hurt underneath, certainly. But everybody had demons; you didn’t need to fight a war or a shipwrecking to acquire a robust stable of issues. Aside from the occasional suspicion Tommy might have been seeing through Oliver’s fantastically pathetic lies to piece together some kind of truth, Tommy Merlyn had just not enormously registered on Diggle’s radar.

But this new version? Digg wasn’t so sure this Tommy just _had_ demons. There had been a viciousness in his thrashing that Diggle wouldn’t have thought the kid had _in_ him perimortem.

And there was something that just deeply unsettled him about the way Tommy had reacted to Felicity—and the constant acute awareness Felicity kept of Tommy.

As if summoned by this wondering, Felicity unfolded from her chair—and god did it make John’s chest ache in the sweetest way to see her installed back where she belonged—and crossed to join him by Tommy’s side.

Mindful of the way she hovered at one corner of the table by Tommy’s head, within reach but far enough to dive away if sudden hostile moves were made, Digg carried on checking Tommy’s stitches and waited for Felicity to speak.

It wasn’t until he rounded the table to adjust the levels in the IV bags that she took a bracing breath.

“How is he?”

John did his best not to frown that her first question was focused on Tommy; he supposed she was projecting, possibly distracting herself. Focused outward to cope. “Stable. His color’s improving the more the poison cycles out of his system and we get more blood into him.” He sighed. “It really is a piece of luck he’s a universal recipient. Blood’s harder to get than drugs, to be perfectly honest.”

He glanced up to see Felicity’s eyes scanning across Tommy’s body, her lower lip caught in her teeth and brows knit tightly. “Are you sedating him?” She met his eyes and indicated the IV stand with a glance. “I mean. More.”

Sighing a little, Diggle turned Tommy’s left arm a little towards him, frowning down at the ragged tear below the taped IV line where his struggles had torn the previous needle loose. “No. Roy hit him with a pretty hefty dose, and I know you’re wanting him awake sometime this century. Besides, too much while he’s still got that damn snake venom in his system and not enough of his own blood strikes me as a particularly shitty cocktail.”

Felicity nodded and lapsed into silence while Diggle retrieved an alcohol swab and cleaned up the puncture site. It was surprising Oliver had missed it. But, Digg supposed, Oliver had kind of a lot in his head at the moment.

The site would no doubt be an ugly bruise in the next twenty-four hours, but they’d blend neatly into Tommy’s broader pattern of scars and scrapes and bruises.

Diggle let let his eyes travel over the slashed and puckered canvas of Tommy’s torso, recognizing here and there the evidence left behind by tools he knew. “They really did a number on him, didn’t they,” he remarked mildly.

Felicity flicked a glance up at him and swallowed, her eyes falling to a white scar under Tommy’s sternum. Something had punched a hole through him there, Digg could tell.

“They did,” Felicity answered quietly.

She was so carefully circumspect. Not for the first time, John thought torture wasn’t the only thing that had left its mark on Tommy Merlyn. But then, Felicity had said as much, hadn’t she? They’d made him do things for them.

Diggle clenched his jaw and wondered how much the breadth of that statement truly encompassed.

Then, allowing his gaze to skim over the hunch of Felicity’s shoulders, the way she kept her body turned slightly to one side, her hands fidgeting restlessly but stationary on the edge of the table, Digg wondered how much was encompassed by _that_ statement.

Before he could travel far down that lane, the bathroom door opened and Oliver stood hesitant on its threshold. Digg watched the way he went still when his eyes sought Felicity’s desk with the speed and direct accuracy of a fired arrow—and found her chair empty.

It was only a second later that he cut his glance to Tommy—and it snagged on Felicity standing there as well.

Digg marked the nearly-imperceptible fall of Oliver's shoulders in silence.

Oliver and Felicity spent a beat tangled on each other’s gaze, and a new worry rooted tight and squirming in John’s ribcage.

“I’m ready to go,” Oliver broke the quiet softly, eyes only for Felicity. “You?”

Felicity bit her lip—and turned, as if she couldn’t _not_ , to look down again at Tommy. She frowned at him and nibbled her lip.

“I won’t leave him on his own,” Digg promised her. “He’ll be okay.”

“No, he won’t.” The speed and certainty of her answer was startling. She sighed, raising her eyes to Diggle’s. “Thank you. You’ll call? Soon as he stirs?”

Frowning a little, he nodded. “First thing.”

She nodded and turned resolutely away. Walking with a straight spine and high head to her desk, she bent and retrieved her go bag from beneath it and turned to Oliver. “I’m ready.”

He nodded solemnly and moved to retrieve his leather jacket from beside the weapons racks.

Still by her computers, Felicity frowned suddenly. “Wait.”

Freezing in the act of shrugging into his jacket, Oliver’s head whipped round to look at her as if she had screamed it.

Felicity, for her part, just looked dubious. “We’re not taking the motorcycle, are we?”

Oliver continued to stare dumbly, and an outsize, relieved amusement bloomed in John’s chest, spreading warmth up his throat til it released in a snorting chuckle. Reaching into the back pocket of his jeans, he pulled out his own car keys. “Oliver.”

Oliver turned to him just in time to catch the underhand-tossed keys—perfectly neatly, of course.

“I’ll trade you,” Digg offered with a burr of laughter still in his voice, chin chucking. Oliver frowned like he might protest, but Digg raised one sardonic brow to cut him off. “We just got her back, Queen, have mercy.”

Oliver blinked at him, and seemed almost surprised by the little huffing laugh that barked out of his chest. By her chair, Felicity looked just as surprised by the little curl in the corner of her mouth.

Warmth fizzed painful yet welcome in John’s chest. He had missed this more than he had possibly been prepared to realize. These two faces arranged at angles across from him, here in the space where they had begun. It was good.

It was _right_.

Curling Digg’s car keys into his palm, Oliver cleared his throat and smiled ruefully over at Felicity, who smiled tremulously back. Oliver’s eyes crinkled at the corner, and he tipped his head towards the door, tone wry. “Your chariot awaits.”

Felicity flushed and closed her eyes, head shaking with a little fond scoff. “Always stuck playing the damsel.”

John rounded the table to stand in the middle of the space, his throat swelling with emotion that roughened his voice as he looked at Felicity with full eyes. “Nah, no way. You?” She looked at him with narrowed eyes but a smiling mouth. John inhaled deeply, letting the rightness of the moment—the truth of the words perched on his tongue—settle over him and keep him. “You’re the hero.”

Felicity’s lips parted, eyes widening as she flushed. Grip tightening on the strap of her bag, she strode in a quick lurch across the distance between them, and Digg got his arms open for her just in time as she crashed heavily against his chest.

Swallowing tightly through a constricted throat, Digg let his arms fold gently around her as she pressed her face against his heartbeat, her free arm like a skinny iron band around his waist. Digg lay his cheek atop her head and stroked one hand down her half-dried hair, smoothing the frizzy curls as Felicity's fingers bunched up the back of his shirt.

They didn’t speak. It was a moment that didn’t need words, really.

Lifting his head, Diggle set his chin against Felicity's crown and met Oliver’s eye. Oliver stood with his gaze on them, a vulnerable slant to his brows and lips set in a soft, fond curve.

Felicity was slim but solid in his embrace; she was home. She was home at last—a light that burned so bright it cast the dim shadows he’d held of fear, fear and a grim readiness to never see her again, into sharp relief.

But she was home.

At last, Felicity shifted back, clearing her throat, and Digg dropped his arms slowly, hands dragging off her shoulders, taking a little more warmth off her skin before he sent her off with Oliver. Just a little more, to get him through.

He smiled down at her. “Go on. You can rest now.”

She smiled up at him as best she could, eyes wet and shining. “Thank you.” She stepped back, but at the last second, as she turned to follow Oliver’s steps towards the door, she caught his eye one more time. “And Digg? I l—” The syllable cracked in her mouth and broke, and she cleared her throat again, sucking in a fortifying breath. Her voice came out quiet and small, but it wasn’t weak; it was truth distilled to the small kernel of _absolute_. “I love you.”

John’s mouth fell open as she turned quickly away and darted after Oliver out the door, leaving John to stare, her words hitting him like a bright, pure, sweet spear to the heart.

The door closed behind them.

Digg stood and stared still at the door.

“I love you too, honey.”

He would make sure she heard it, next time.

Turning from the door with a sigh, Diggle looked again at Tommy. Feeling kindly, he went back to the bench and picked up the pillow and blanket that had been tossed to the floor in the struggle. He shoved the pillow under Tommy’s head and draped the blanket over him, shaking his head as he twitched the top over Tommy’s chest. “I tell you what,” he muttered to Tommy, sedated and inattentive—typical. “I spend way too much time with unconscious white boys.”

Wistfully thinking of the days he could tweak Oliver up about how he deserved a raise for all the shit he put up with, Diggle turned his back to Tommy and crossed to Felicity’s desk.

Sitting in her chair now felt less like sacrilege, knowing it was _hers_ again, knowing she’d left her warmth on it less than an hour ago.

With a weary sigh, he leaned gratefully back into its structured support, head tipping back and eyes shutting.

Just for a second. Just a moment.

He wouldn’t sleep. He’d promised Felicity to keep watch over Tommy—and more than that, he would never allow himself to be so lax in a situation with so many unknown variables.

He just needed a minute to gather himself. To summon the fortitude for what came next.

God knew he’d need it.

Sighing lengthily through his nose, John’s eyes slit open and he reached into the deep pocket of his jacket. Withdrawing his cell phone, he lifted his head and unlocked the screen to hit the first speed dial.

He brought it to his ear and listened to the tinny ring once, twice—

“John Diggle, you better be alive and in one piece so that I can _kill you_.”

Digg winced, but chuckled tiredly all the same. “Love you too, honey bunny.”

There was a second’s pause broken only by the distant hiss of Lyla sucking in a breath. “What the fuck _happened_ , Johnny! You should have made contact hours ago, do you have any _idea_ of the deep shit we’re both swimming in right now? I sent you and your boy out to that base for _surveillance_ , and I’ve been getting reports that half the thing’s on fire and there’s _bodies_ —”

“Baby, baby, hey,” John tried to interrupt, sitting up straight and frowning.

“I thought you might be _one of them_ , Johnny!” Lyla hissed. “Do you have any idea how much worse this shit feels when you add baby hormones into the shit stew? Where did this survey and assess mission turn into a goddamn incursion? My asset is dead, there’s burned up bodies I doubt we’ll be able to identify, and I’ve had to dispatch a team to take control of the situation and construct a cover for why a defunct Air Force base half an hour from a Nevada town mysteriously caught fire.”

Grimacing, Diggle put his elbows on his knees and pinched at the bridge of his nose. “It’s a long damn story.”

“Don’t think for a second that you’re not going to tell me the whole damn thing,” Lyla snapped. “I spent the last two hours worried the father of my unborn child was _dead_.”

Heart thudding guiltily, he scrubbed a broad palm over his jaw, early morning stubble rasping. “I’m sorry. It’s—we’ve been managing the situation this whole time, and I promise I’m calling you the second I had the chance. Lyla. We are all home safe and sound.”

“Great,” she shot back, with the ragged irritation that signaled her anxiety was winding slowly down. “Now explain why—”

“Babe,” Digg interrupted steadily, “you’re not listening. We are _all_ home, safe and sound.”

“All—” she cut off with a sharp inhalation. “ _All_? You found—she was _there_?”

“She was,” he answered simply. “It was definitely the League.”

“Oh my god,” Lyla murmured, stunned. “I mean, I thought it was a real possibility or I never would have sent you out there. But I thought it’d be a—a link in the chain, a clue, something like that. I never really thought she’d _be_ there.”

“I didn’t quite expect it, myself,” Digg admitted. But Oliver. Oh, Oliver had _tried_ to manage his hopes. But it’d been obvious he’d believed. It had burned in him. But John thought that spoke more of desperation than anything. Oliver would have been just as earnestly certain if they’d been sent to investigate a burnt-out McDonald’s in Idaho. “She’s not really ready to talk about it all, so we don’t know why yet.”

“Of course,” Lyla snapped back to attention, tone brisk. “If it was the League, she’s no doubt been through hell. Is she okay, though?”

“I…” Diggle worried at his lower lip with his teeth for a moment. “It’s hard to say. She’s whole, but she’s hurting. Aside from some definite malnutrition, I don’t think it’s physical, mostly. It’s gonna take her some time, I think.”

The line crackled as Lyla let out an expansive breath. “She’s home. It’s a good start. But Johnny. What happened? Was busting her out where it all went to hell?”

As if drawn by magnets, Digg’s gaze dragged over to Tommy. “It was already going to hell when we got inside. I think Felicity was on her way out with or without us.”

“Good girl,” Lyla murmured approvingly.

“Listen, Lyla,” John continued reluctantly, staring at Tommy’s wan face. “I think we’d better hold a debrief until we’re face to face. The story just gets longer and weirder from there.”

“Of course it does,” Lyla muttered wearily.

John chuckled. “It’s a lot, I won’t lie. Some of it I wouldn’t be particularly comfortable hashing out over the phone, honestly.”

“This is a secure line,” Lyla said slowly, her tone thoughtful, “but your paranoia is probably healthy. Waller’s out of town, but I don’t need it getting to her that her top agent fed Starling’s own vigilantes confidential intelligence that lost us a valuable mole and led to a splashy conflict at a site on our watchlist.”

“That woman is a viper,” John commented bitterly. “She’d eat you alive at the first sign of trouble rather than risk blowback.”

“She’s that, but she’s a viper looking out for national interest,” Lyla defended reluctantly. “But getting on her shitlist isn’t exactly on my baby shower registry. We’ll talk more later. I’ll be here buttoning this mess up from Ops for a while longer anyways.”

Needlessly, Digg nodded. “See you at home, then. Watch your back.”

“Love you too,” Lyla quipped cheerfully, and hung up.

A fleeting smile curving his lips, Diggle slipped his phone back into his pocket and leaned back into the chair, swivelling it to better keep watch on the living dead man, feeling like he was settling in to watch a bomb count down to detonation.

—

Oliver hurried with Felicity up the stairs to his apartment in the pale, washed-out early sunlight. She let him keep a hand light in the middle of her back as they went, her shoulders hunched and eyes narrowed to slits against the light.

She stood awkwardly beside him while he unlocked the door and the deadbolt, her lips pressed thin and white, hands hooked around her elbows.

Oliver glanced at her and held up one hand—wait.

He opened the door and ducked inside ahead of her, quickly sweeping the spare, small space with his eyes as he stood just beyond the threshold.

“We’re clear, Felicity,” he said, turning back to her.

She edged through the doorway, and Oliver quickly backed off to give her space, swallowing the lump of his heart in his throat at the way she held herself so tightly, moved with such wariness.

She moved into the little living area, past the armchair to stand by the beat up blue couch. Her hand passed along the back, fingertips lightly brushing the well-worn, soft upholstery.

Chest like a vise, Oliver turned away to relock and bolt the door, setting the chain before he turned to Felicity again. She was still looking at the couch, her gaze distant, palm smoothing over the top, back and forth.

Awkwardly, Oliver shifted on his feet, thumb and forefinger chafing. “Um. I’d give you a tour, but—”

“I remember,” Felicity said softly, a little wryly.

Oliver was just relieved to hear her speak.

She turned to offer him a faltering smile. “Looks just the same.”

For a long moment, they just stood and looked at each other in silence.

Finally, Felicity looked away, seeming to look over the bare wall across from the kitchen. It was blank but for the flatscreen stood on a low table against the whitewashed plaster. Felicity had chided him several times that he should put something on the wall—a painting, a poster.

He waited, desperate to be nagged about how the blank wall was an insult, how his home deserved to be _lived_ in.

She kept her quiet.

Finally, adding a pound to his weight of heartbreak, Oliver cleared his throat and started to shrug out of his leather jacket. “You take the bed. I’ll be fine on the couch.”

Her eyes only skated over his face, lips pulling down at the corners. “You don’t have to—”

“Felicity,” he interrupted softly. “Please. I’d—I need to be between you and the door. I just…” He sighed, frustrated with himself, guilty—always guilty—and scrubbed at the back of his hair with one hand. “I need to.”

Felicity looked at him, brows lowering and shoulders squaring up, jaw setting for an argument—but very suddenly she deflated with a sigh, the fight not so much leaving her as retreating inward. “Of course you do.”

The words bit bitterly, and Oliver flinched a little.

“Fine,” she continued leadenly. “I’ll play princess in the tower a little longer.” She flashed Oliver a quick, hot glare he didn’t understand and went on, “But not much longer.”

Uncomfortably, he said, “Thank you.”

“I’m going to brush my teeth,” she muttered, turning on her heel and rounding the edge of the folding screen that divided the room.

The lock clicked quietly when the bathroom door shut, but it cracked through Oliver and put him into motion. One ear on the rustle of movement and the rush of water in the bathroom, he strode into the sleeping area and stripped the bed and set quickly to dressing the mattress in new sheets and blanket.

The old ones would have smelled stale, musty.

It had been weeks since he’d slept in them.

Another guilty worm squirmed through his gut as he made a mental note to break away sometime soon so he could swing by Felicity’s townhouse. He’d need to remove his things, the evidence of his vigil. At some point, no doubt, Felicity would want to go _home_. To collect more of her things if not to stay.

Embarrassment warmed the back of Oliver’s neck, the rims of his ears as he imagined trying to explain himself.

He collected one of the pillows from the bed and an extra sheet for the couch, and the bathroom door opened as he was shutting the shallow closet beside his dresser. Oliver turned to see Felicity fidgeting in the doorway, still in her jeans and pink shirt.

“Were there no pajamas in your bag?” Oliver blurted. Then, shaking wincing at himself he jerked his head to indicate his dresser. “I mean, I could lend you something. To sleep in.”

“No. This is fine,” Felicity insisted stiffly.

Oliver hesitated, shifting his weight from foot to foot, but let it go in the end. “I made the bed up for you.”

His own awkwardness brought the sort of thought to the surface that had come to him countless times over the last year and a half—that Tommy would mock him relentlessly for his bumbling inanity, if he were still alive.

This time, on its heels instantly followed the barrelling-train remembrance that Tommy _was_ alive—and just after it, quieter, the thought that Tommy still might never laugh at him, with him, like that again.

Felicity broke him out of the freefall that opened up in his chest with a little cough. “Is that—do you have any more blankets?” He blinked at her stupidly, and she shrugged her shoulders, one arm crossing her waist so she could chafe her hand up and down the other. “It’s just a little… chilly in here.”

Oliver kept the thermostat static at exactly 68°.

In the years he had lost to the island, it had seemed that he was only ever freezing to death or swelteringly hot. Not even the temperatures had given him any comfort or relief, and ever since his return home, he found he hated to be either too hot or too cold, now that he had _control_.

He ran a little warm in general, so 68 was the perfect mild ambient temperature.

Felicity, however, was considerably smaller. She stood there, and as he looked at her, he realized she held herself tightly in not just as if she were curving her whole body protectively inwards, but as if she were preserving warmth. Now that he was paying attention, he could see goosebumps rising up the skin of her arms.

His cheeks flushing, Oliver glanced guiltily at the hamper in the corner into which he’d tossed his stale bedding. “Uh. Just one other, and it’s, um… it’s dirty.” She grimaced, and he hurried on, “I could adjust the thermostat.”

“No,” she raised her hands to halt him in his first lurching step. “That’s not—you don’t have to do that.” Wrinkling her nose a little and looking oddly resigned, she asked, “Do you… could I maybe just borrow a sweatshirt or something?”

“Uh,” Oliver blinked, shaking his head—shaking himself—and spinning around to the dresser. He bent to retrieve a folded gray sweatshirt from the second drawer. Straightening, he walked over and stopped within arm’s reach, proffering the cotton pullover. “Here. This okay?”

Lip caught between her teeth, she took the shirt from him and looked down at it, a corner of her mouth shaping a rueful curl. “Yeah. Thank you.”

Fidgeting his hands around the sheet and pillow he still held, Oliver just stared at her for a moment, allowing himself this one moment, just this one—

This one moment to soak in the realness of her. Her presence. The soft, warming light filtering through the thin curtain over the window by the door, highlight the arches of her cheekbone and brow, filling the hollows of her eye socket and thinned cheek with shallow shadows.

It was like a dream.

Like he might wake up any moment and she would still be gone.

Tommy would still be dead and Felicity lost, and he would have empty hands and a heart full of helpless frustration.

But his dreams had been kinder, when they’d let him have her back. She’d been as vibrant and solid and healthy as he’d ever known her, a bright-paint mouth ready to smile and laugh, hair sleek and curled and gold as memory.

She wasn’t less in the here and now. She was still solid, if unsteady. It wasn’t that she was washed out, or hollow. But she was compressed. Concentrated and distilled, tightened up. Like a fist.

Thinner, paler. And her hair—

His hand rose without conscious direction, and Felicity’s eyes flashed up to his, wide, wary, a flinch measured in stillness. Oliver let two fingertips touch the top of her head—easy as she stood flat footed, some six inches shorter than him—and lightly drew the pads down one frizzing lock, from light brown roots to the dull yellow at her ears.

She flushed, but held his gaze, lips parting, breath a moist, warm puff that hit him in the hollow of his throat.

When had he stepped so close?

Oliver swallowed, thick and thorny, but his voice came out a dragging rasp even still. “Your secret’s still safe with me.”

He let his lips falter up into a little smile, inviting remembrance, inviting her into confidence and things shared and treasured.

She blinked those startled blue eyes up at him while he held his breath—and then her next breath puffed against his throat in a little laugh, and cool relief poured into his chest like a pitcher of water. He laughed with her and uprooted his feet to step back, a curling strand clinging for just one second to his callused index finger as he drew his hand away.

He meant to let it fall to his side.

As if his conscious control were only suggestion, it landed instead on her shoulder, the palm cupping over roundness sharper than it remembered.

But she didn’t flinch or tense, looking up at him from under her lashes.

He dared a squeeze.

Clearing his throat, he reluctantly let her go. “I should let you sleep.”

Sheet and pillow tucked under his arm, Oliver dropped his hand to his side and awkwardly stepped away from Felicity, heading for the couch.

Just as he passed the partition, she cleared her throat. “Oliver.”

He didn’t even feel the friction under his heels as he spun around, empty hand coming up to awkwardly tap the edge of the folding screen. “Yeah?” He raised his eyebrows, tucking his lip under his teeth.

Felicity stared at the foot of the bed for a moment, brow furrowed. Inhaling abruptly she raised her head and met his eye, voice small as she asked, “What’s… what’s the date?”

His heart thudded once, heavy, a beat before stopping.

He wondered, in that hollow stillness, how long she thought she’d been gone. And how long it had felt to her.

He _knew_ how long it had felt to him.

His lungs filled, automatic, and his heart beat again. “It’s September. Fifth.”

Her gaze dropped to his throat, unfocused as she mouthed the words. Slowly, her eyes slid closed, and for one unspeakable moment that Oliver knew would live in the empty places in his chest until he died, her face _broke_.

Pain. Despair. Grief.

In a breath, it was gone.

Felicity opened her eyes, some dark spark burning behind them, squared her jaw, and nodded. “Thank you. I’m…”

She trailed off, turning to look at the bed. Indefinably, her posture crumbled like a pillar of ash and he could see her exhaustion.

He wanted to go to her. Wanted to take her hand and tuck her into the bed, and sit beside her and keep her safe as she slept. Wanted to kiss her forehead and guard her dreams, lay beside her and be comforted by the rhythm of her breath, the percussion of her heartbeat. The _reality_ of her.

But none of this was about what _he_ wanted.

So he took a deep breath and whispered, “Good night.”

He tore himself away and blindly left her for the couch, shedding his shirt and shoes and settling down under the thin sheet.

He listened across the artificial distance to Felicity’s rustling and shuffling—denim against sheets, the mattress’s creak—and stared up at the ceiling. Lifting an arm over his head, he shoved his hand under the pillow.

His knuckles wedged between the cushion and the couch’s arm—just above the knife he kept tucked there like forgotten change.

Felicity would sleep.

Oliver would keep her safe.

—

 _One_.

_One-two._

_One-two, kick_.

Metal creaked as the punching bag swung on its chain, Laurel’s breath percussively timed to the strike of her fist, her knee, her foot against the old canvas. Chalk powder puffed into the air with each impact, invisible except in the warming slant of midmorning light pouring from the gym’s high slat windows.

Her muscles ached, eyes dry, gritty, her limbs weighted with exhaustion she chased hard after. Still she pushed. Swing, pivot, _hit_.

She had gotten home, intent on a shower and a change of clothes before heading into the office. She hadn’t gotten farther than the bathroom mirror and the rising red mottling her neck. The raw rasp in her voice had been helpfully convincing when she decided instead to call in one of her rarely used sick days rather than risk the scrutiny.

In a building full of lawyers and cops, an unseasonable scarf or turtleneck would have been an advertisement to investigate.

She had tried to sleep. But her mind whirred and emotions swung wildly—anger, grief, confusion, joy, relief, horror—images of blood and rubble and familiar blue eyes lit by a stranger’s fury strobing across the backs of her eyelids. An hour and a half of tossing and turning, muttering curses and mantras and muffling sobs, and Laurel had given up on rest.

She’d reached for her sister. But the phone had droned that dull ring like an echo down a tunnel, seemingly endless, disorienting, futile, before ending abruptly in a robotically stiff voice telling her there was no voicemail box set up.

Laurel struck the punching bag with one tape-wrapped fist, gut clenching with anxiety. A yawning chasm of fear for Sara lurked just beneath her feet, waiting for her to look down, waiting for her to fall into it—tempting her with a dry burn down the back of her throat.

She’d reached for her sister, and her empty hands wanted a bottle to drown the worry, to dull the chaos.

The chain squealed and groaned as Laurel whirled a roundhouse kick into the heavy bag’s side.

Her dad would scowl and tell her to get her ass into a meeting if he could see her now. But how could Laurel possibly explain to a group of half-strangers that it was assassins and dead lovers and missing sisters and kidnapped vigilantes that was driving her to the drink? What words could she _possibly_ frame Tommy’s hands around her throat in?

The thought of sitting still and silent and listening to others confess their own thirst made her skin crawl. Holding her tongue, sitting on her hands—god, it only made her want the alcohol, the pills even _more_.

Helplessness, inaction—these were the real threat.

And so Laurel found herself in her car, her duffel on the passenger seat, parked outside Ted’s gym. The second she’d seen that ugly warehouse with its faded-paint logo, a queerly cool-burning relief spilled down into her chest, her stomach, almost as good as the stinging buzz of a glass of whiskey.

She needed to _hit_ something.

Teeth bared, she threw herself heavily into the next right hook—and her knuckles skidded off the side of the bag. Overbalanced, she stumbled forward, the bag swinging back and hitting her heavily if gently in the side.

“Oof,” Laurel grunted and wrapped her arms around the punching bag to keep from falling, feet shuffling with the bag’s tottering momentum.

She panted and leaned her cheek against the dusty-smelling canvas, eyes falling shut and brow furrowing as the sweat on her skin cooled, and she finally felt the sticky damp across the back of her neck, over her shoulders, down her arms, beaded on her nose and upper lip and plastering stray hairs to her temples and nape. Her muscle shirt and sports bra clung to her skin.

As stillness overtook her, trembling started in her legs, her arms; her lungs and throat felt scraped raw, and her fingers shook against the bag.

The quiet of the gym—the sighing creak of the bag’s chain, her own scudding breath—seemed to take on substance around her, together with the early light encasing in her in something warm, something separate and outside of the world. Something _safe_.

Laurel leaned into the bag, leaned into that elusive, fragile peace—

—and behind her, a tiny _click_ , and the heavy door scraped open.

Peace evaporated, and left Laurel’s skin salt-tacky and too cool.

Setting her jaw and allowing herself one fortifying sigh, she straightened, hands holding the bag in place as she stepped back from it.

“Lance?” Ted Grant’s step faltered six paces past the door, but only for a second. “See, I know I gave you a key, but if you keep showing up before me and leaving after me I’m gonna start getting real insecure about whose name goes on the paperwork,” he joked.

Wincing, Laurel’s hand flew to her throat—to the finger length red lines—and she kept her back to Ted, heat flashing across her cheeks. She’d intended to be gone before he arrived to open the place up at nine.

“Laurel?”

Footsteps brought him around the boxing ring towards the weights and the line of three punching bags Laurel stood at the near end of, and she fidgeted left, right, then darted awkwardly to her gym bag on the floor by the wall, crouching as she pulled her water bottle from the side pouch.

“Hey,” Ted, damn him, circled around beside her. Laurel kept her head bent and sipped shallowly on her water. She could just see his denim-clad shins in her periphery. “You okay?”

Keeping her chin low, Laurel screwed the cap back onto her water. “Fine.”

It came out a rasp-edged croak, and Laurel cringed, reflexively glancing up into Ted’s concern-lined face. His eyes widened, then narrowed, and she turned her head away, mortified. With fast fingers, she fumbled in the front pouch of her duffel, searching for her car keys.

Time to leave.

“Laurel, what happened?” Ted crouched next to her, reaching for her shoulder but stopping short of touch even before she ducked away. “Your neck—”

Laurel pressed her lips thin and glared at her duffel bag. “It’s not what it looks like.”

She was wincing at the words even as Ted’s brows leapt skeptically up his forehead. “Yeah? Because it kind of looks like somebody tried to strangle you.”

Laurel’s heart pounded, palms sweating, and an irrational anger spiralled up in her, twined with panic. She had to excuse this, somehow. Ted Grant was the sort of man to look into something like this, and the last thing Laurel needed was him poking his nose into the disaster unfolding beneath the floors of Verdant.

The anger and panic crystallized, and suddenly she was _clear_. Sharp and in control, every thin explanation she’d ever heard at CNRI fell away and the precise words she needed, the exact defense, the deflect and the narrative, she found them resting comfortably underneath her tongue with the familiar weight she so often felt in the courtroom.

Drawing in one long breath, Laurel let it go slowly and closed her eyes, shaking her head for a moment before meeting Ted’s patient gaze. Curling her mouth in artful ruefulness, Laurel let her fingertips rise to brush the bruising at her throat. “That’s because somebody did. You know any veterans, Ted?”

Ted blinked, clearly caught off guard by the seeming non sequitur. “A few.”

When it counted, Ted didn’t give away more words than were needed. Laurel appreciated that. “You’ve probably heard, then, that you’re not supposed to wake up somebody with PTSD when they’re having nightmares.”

Ted’s eyes narrowed, and he frowned, gaze flickering to her neck and back to her face. “I take it then that this is something you forgot.”

Heart feeling like a stone, Laurel lied with grace. “Only just long enough to remember for the rest of my life.”

Still looking faintly dissatisfied, Ted’s shoulders relaxed a little as he propped one elbow on his knee and rubbed his other hand over his jaw. “Still. I hope your boyfriend apologized. You could’ve been hurt pretty bad.”

“I can take care of myself,” Laurel snapped reflexively. Ted grimaced and raised his hands in surrender, and she sighed apologetically. “Sorry.”

“No, hey. Believe me, I have no doubt you can take care of yourself.” Eyes still somber, his lips curled in a wry line that invited her to lower her guard. “I sure as hell wouldn’t want to take the place of these poor punching bags. Seen you whale on them enough to know getting on the other side of your fists would be like taking on Lady Justice herself.”

Laurel huffed a little laugh, to her own surprise. Something chimed clear in her head and rang through her chest at his words, but she set it aside, mind churning instead over something else he’d said. Something that felt less true, and more familiar. Like pain. Like grief. “He wasn’t… He’s not. My boyfriend.” She lowered her eyes to her own hands, the curve shaping her mouth sad. “He… was a friend. I’m just—I’m not sure _what_ he is anymore.”

Ted tilted his head on one side, considering her. “It’s none of my business, I know. But whatever this guy is, especially since he hurt you, even if he didn’t mean to… he’s lucky.”

Laurel’s eyes filled with visions of Tommy’s scars, his bloody side, his wild eyes. She’d thought plenty of how his privilege—wealth, power, social status, family name—had insulated him, when they were younger. Before he died.

But now?

She would hardly call Tommy Merlyn _lucky_.

“After all,” Ted continued softly. “You clearly care about him a lot. Whatever else, that’s worth something.”

Swallowing a sudden lump in her aching throat, Laurel looked away and smiled thinly.

Ted considered her for a long moment, then let go a quiet breath. “You look like you could stand to upgrade from the bag. Want to get in the ring?”

Laurel’s head came up in sharp surprise; she had expected him to gently but firmly kick her out, tell her to go home, get some sleep. She knew she looked awful. But she also knew she had more demons to exorcise from the rafters of her head. Rather stunningly, Ted seemed to understand that implicitly.

He rose to his feet with a smile, and held out a hand to her. “What do you say? And when you’ve got me on the ropes…” His smile spread into a crooked, unexpectedly charming grin, the rims of his ears going pink. “Maybe we could get some breakfast.”

To Laurel’s shock and embarrassment, she _blushed_. Eyes wide, she rolled her lips to keep them from stretching into the weird, awkward smile that seemed to want to overtake her face. “Um.”

“No pressure,” Ted reassured softly, still grinning.

She hesitated just a moment longer, heart fluttering rapidly with a riotous confusion of feeling. Finally, she reached out and took firm hold of his hand, launching to her feet as he tugged her up. Self consciously swiping a stray lock of hair off her cheek, she stood her ground and took a decided step forward all at once. “We’ll see.”

Ted’s eyes lit with surprise and pleasure, and Laurel’s knot-tied heart tripped. “Well, shall we get started? I’ve got a meal to earn.”

She smiled back at him, and he turned and headed for the equipment lockers.

Laurel didn’t know what to make of the glimmer of interest that was so clear in Ted’s invitation. A week ago— _yesterday,_ even, the prospect of breakfast with Ted would have given her just a little trepidation.

And a lot of hope.

Today?

Today, Tommy lay buried under a cement block—but very much alive.

Today, she knew what the last man she’d loved looked like when he was prepared to kill.

Right now?

Right now, she knew nothing other than that Ted Grant was a good man, and that Tommy Merlyn _had_ been. She knew the curl of her fists, and the limits of her muscles.

And she hadn’t reached them yet.

Laurel stepped into the ring.

—

He hadn’t meant to sleep.

He hadn’t thought he _could_.

But sleep had found him even still, and as slyly as it had stolen up on him, it was suddenly torn away.

Oliver startled upright on the couch, his breath stilling in his chest as he listened for the sound that had snatched him into alertness.

The apartment was still in the soft, shadow-filtered light that slipped through the front window. Blinking, Oliver’s eyes took stock of the room—just as he left it, the locks and chains all secured—and he judged by the light that some handful of hours had passed. He’d guess it was later morning, maybe closing in on noon.

A whimper on the other side of the folding screen brought Oliver’s head sharply around, his brows snapping together over the bridge of his nose.

 _Felicity_.

He was off the couch, sheet on the floor and hardwood cool under his soles, before the motion was a conscious thought. Forgetting his shirt on the floor by the coffee table, he prowled around the couch, feet rolling him forward in soundless strides.

He paused just at the entry created by the screen’s edge, halting just before passing into the space he had surrendered to Felicity.

It felt as if a line had been drawn on the floor.

This imaginary boundary burned hot just at his toes, scorched in his mind’s eye to mark where his respect for Felicity’s need for space, for privacy and autonomy began, and where his fears and atavistic _need_ ended.

The mattress creaked under the toss of Felicity’s body, and the dim beyond the screen throbbed with a sob in her voice—a sob, half a word—a name?

The invisible line dissipated as if drawn in sand, and Oliver stepped into the heavy shadows of the bedroom.

He stopped in front of the bathroom door, shoulders high and taut, hands open, waiting at his sides as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Shadows resolved into shapes: the bed, the pale sheets and light blanket; these shifted, and Oliver’s gaze sharpened on Felicity’s form.

Her head tossed on the pillow, legs tangled in the blankets. One arm flung up, the back of her hand thumping the pillow by her face as she whimpered, the sound undercut by a quiet gasp—the short, punctuated inhalation of shock. Of pain.

“Felicity,” Oliver murmured.

He was afraid. Afraid to go to her. Afraid to touch her.

“Stop,” she moaned, rolling onto her side. Her face buried in the pillow, muffling a cracking sob. Her head turned, hair a hushing slide, and a whisper cut clear through the room. “ _Please_.”

Oliver swallowed hard and took a halting step forward—then, fists clenching tight, he jerked to a stop. Shaking her awake would be the worst thing he could do.

Kicking out against the blankets weakly, Felicity gave a sharp cry, panting like wolves howled at her heels.

Swearing, Oliver backed up to the bathroom door, pushing it open. “Felicity!” he barked, and hit the bathroom light.

Yellow light flashed bright and sudden in a rectangle across the bed, and Felicity bolted upright with a gasp, eyes going blindly wide. Instantly, she squinted against the light, blinking rapidly and scrabbling up the mattress, whining and hissing as she fought the tangle of the sheets. She pushed up past the pillow and crowded her back against the wall.

She stared at Oliver as if she didn’t know him.

In that moment, he was worse than a stranger. Felicity squinted at him, teeth bared, cheeks wet, and coiled up away from him—away from the threat.

His lips parted, and a hairline fracture splintered through the center of his heart. “Felicity,” he whispered, lifting both hands carefully slowly, palms out as if to calm a cornered animal. “Felicity, it’s me. You’re here, you’re h—You’re with me.”

She stared at him, adjusting to the light, to consciousness, and—face clearing incrementally—to the new reality of freedom. Of safety.

Oliver took cautious steps forward, watching her body language for signals. She didn’t flinch away or tense. But she didn’t relax.

“Felicity,” he said softly, coming around the side of the bed. “Okay?”

He reached out a hand towards her, and she glanced at it before her eyes locked again on his face. Knees bending slowly, so slowly, he brought one onto the mattress and lowered himself to sit on it sideways. Beside her, but not crowding her.

His eyes darted over her flushed face, her sleep-mussed hair—the slight tremble of her lower lip, the bob of her throat as she swallowed. He held his hand out, inches away. Waiting. “Okay?”

“Oliver.” She breathed it so softly, his name in her mouth like a word in a language you only barely knew. Her teeth snapped closed as her chin shook, and she inhaled deeply through her nose. Tears brimmed sudden and forceful in her eyes. “Oliver?”

“It’s okay,” he tried to reassure, his heart thudding heavy, sluggish. “You were asleep. Dreaming. But you’re here.”

Fingers shaking with hesitation, Felicity raised her hand and set it in his upturned palm.

Oliver drew her hand to his chest, covering her fingers with his against his heartbeat. They stared at each other as the rhythm beat beneath their hands, and his very soul strained forward to pour everything he couldn’t say—for lack of words, for lack of timing—into the steady thump. Tried to pass it all through the warmth that bled from his skin to hers.

Felicity’s lips parted as she searched his face. Finally, her features screwing up and salt tears spilling over down her cheeks, she closed her eyes and choked out, “Oh, thank god.”

Without warning, she threw herself forward.

But Oliver caught her.

Caught her and held her fast.

Sobbing, Felicity all but crawled into his lap, and Oliver gathered her in against his chest, his arms wrapping up around her shoulders, her waist. He dropped his face against the top of her head as she pressed her cheek to the skin of his collarbone, and he murmured nonsense promises into her hair.

She cried like she was containing a storm. Shoulders shaking with the the force of swallowed sobs, wet drops pattered onto his chest; the hot hiss of her breath through her teeth blew thin and sharp against his skin. The power of it all groaned in her throat, escaped in gasps and whimpers.

Felicity held back her storm, unwilling yet to let it loose, needing still to bleed off the crushing pressure.

Oliver held her, in as much as he could offering his own body as barrier against the howl and fury.

Slowly, her tears subsided, but tremors still shook through her. Oliver pressed his mouth to her hairline and smoothed his palm up and down her spine, the heavy cotton of his sweatshirt warming under the path of his hand. Felicity’s fingers twisted and held in the belt loops of his jeans, as if anchoring herself to the here and now—to him.

For a moment, with Felicity solid in his arms, her bones and angles cradled in his, Oliver felt…

Peace.

For one soft beat of time in months— _years_ —of anxiety and agony and guilt, Oliver was at rest. He let the hollow of his palm cup Felicity’s nape, breathed in the shampoo-and-sweat and salt-skin smell of her, and in holding tight, he let go.

It didn’t—couldn’t—last.

Felicity’s fingers untwined from his belt loops, her hands lighting briefly on the bare skin of his waist before withdrawing. She drew in a long and unsteady breath, and when she lifted her head, Oliver straightened too. As she sat up and air rushed into the space between them, he felt his walls draw back up. She kept her gaze lowered, lower lip caught between her teeth as she stared at her lap.

Oliver chafed one hand up and down her left arm, the other drawing up along her shoulder to brush her hair back from her face.

He couldn’t help himself. Couldn’t let go as easily as he knew he should. His fingers tucked her hair behind her ear, and the slender line of her jaw fit so neatly in his palm. His thumb stroked away the sticky damp drying on her cheek, and she looked up at him.

Her eyes were swollen, red-shot, and stunningly blue. Lashes spiked from tears, and the pad of his thumb drew from the corner of her eye down the arch of her cheekbone. Stopped at the corner of her mouth. Her lips parted on an exhale that fanned across his chin and throat, and he swallowed a rising lump.

Even rumpled and exhausted, cried-out and worn thin, in this moment he found her achingly beautiful. It sang with a sweetness in his chest, buoyed up by things it wasn’t safe to look at, to name.

And he had almost lost the opportunity for any realization. To look at her, and be struck by the endearment of her face.

She licked dry lips, her hands knotting up the hem of his borrowed sweatshirt as he stroked his thumb just one more time over her cheek.

“You’re safe now,” he promised. “I let you down—so badly. Too long. And it will never happen again.”

“Oliver…” Felicity’s brows pulled together in worry, and he impulsively leaned in to press a kiss against her forehead.

When he pulled back, her cheeks were flushed, her mouth a frown to match the furrow of her brow. “No matter what it takes.” His jaw clenched, anxiety and anger flaring hot in his chest. “If any of them ever, _ever_ try to lay so much as a hand on you again, I will stop at _nothing_.”

He wanted to reassure her. Wanted to apologize.

He had failed her. And he would spend his very life before it happened like this again.

Tucking her lips between her teeth, Felicity only frowned harder and looked away. Instantly tense and closing in on herself, she shuffled awkwardly backward out of his lap, his embrace. Oliver’s hands fell away cold, and his own face collapsed into worried lines as Felicity rose stiffly to her feet.

“I’m just going to—” she gestured toward the bathroom, the motion sharp and minimal, kept close in. “Wash my face.”

She skirted wide and hurried around him and into the bathroom—shutting the door and shutting him out of the light—and Oliver watched the dim overtake the room with a sinking feeling.

The hush of running water filtered through the bathroom door, and Oliver rose to his feet, thumb and fingers chafing restlessly on his left hand. With a sigh, he moved to the wall to hit the overhead light, the bare bulb in the ceiling brightening the room.

Half-formed thoughts and fears chased each other in circles in Oliver’s head as he pulled a new t-shirt from his dresser and dragged the muted mustard-yellow cotton over his head. Socks were next as he kept one ear to the sounds of Felicity in the bathroom, a grounding counterpoint to the white noise in his mind.

Sudden and clear, the trilling ring of his cell phone cut through it all.

Swearing under his breath, Oliver strode past the bathroom door and around the divider, fishing his phone out from under his discarded shirt by the couch and seeing Diggle’s wry face and raised brow on the screen as he thumbed accept.

“Digg,” he answered shortly. “Is he—?”

“Not exactly,” John cut in. “But he’s starting to come around. Thought you two might want to get over here. I have a feeling we want Felicity here when he wakes up.” Oliver’s gut tightened anxiously, but Digg continued. “And I’m pretty sure _she_ wants to be here for it.”

“Yeah,” Oliver rasped, throat dry.

Behind him, the bathroom door opened, and Oliver turned to see Felicity step around the folding screen, her hand gripping the edge as her eyes lit on him, bright and alert, jaw clenched and nostrils flared. Her entire posture was a question, bare feet already pointed at the front door.

Holding her gaze, Oliver unglued his tongue from the roof of his mouth and said into the phone, “We’re on our way.”

—

Tommy drifted into consciousness as if through a thick fog; alertness came and went, shrouded and clear at intervals. Two or three times, his eyes cracked open—on indistinct shapes and a far-off ceiling; bright lights and shifting shadows—before his heavy lids shuttered down again, and pressed him leadenly back into static.

Slowly, inevitably, awareness sparked in disjointed pieces, jumping in arcing point from nerve ending to thought. First rushed in the cold: all along his back, his shoulders and arms, a searing, unrelenting _cold_.

A cold he knew. He’d felt it before, felt it for hours and hours and _days_.

Pain came with it, that loyal companion. His side slowly woke into a throbbing ache that flared with sharp lines of fire, radiating slowly like a tide up through his veins til it came to roost in his chest, where it knit together with the dry, raw shred that was his throat, and the heavy, clumsy thickness of his tongue, too full in his mouth, pushing at his teeth, which ached in his jaw.

Waking carried him gently up into a world painted in strokes of agony, uncertainty, and a quiet, still fear—and Tommy rose with it familiarly.

Carefully, eyes still shut, he regulated his breathing, keeping it deep and even; he forced his heartbeat, which wanted to thunder and gallop in a lather of terror, to thump along steadily—somewhere above and to the left, his efforts were rewarded by a matching, dispassionate electronic beeping.

He struggled along for a time; he could hear a voice speaking in the room with him, but through the sluggish thrum of sedatives in his blood, cottoning up his head, he couldn’t grasp the words. The tenor and tone flowed around him, but meaning slipped fluidly through his grasp.

Tommy lay warily still, feigning unconsciousness as he gathered his faculties and drew up his reserves. If he had to run, he would run. If he had to fight—or kill—or die—he would not hesitate.

So he waited, lingering weakness facilitating patience his fear didn’t kindly foster, for a chance, a change. An opportunity.

He nearly blew it once, when footsteps drew up close to the slab he rested on and large hands drew back the thin blanket that covered him and pressed clinically at the wound in his side.

The heart monitor spiked and he cursed himself as the hands paused, but Tommy threw himself frantically into improvisation. Moaning weakly, he let his head toss, his fingers twitch. And then he subsided.

“Hang in there,” the voice murmured.

Recognition nagged distantly at Tommy’s mind.

Nagged and fluttered away as he reached for it.

The man covered him back up and shuffled around him for some few minutes more, yielding a cacophony of telling noises—rolling wheels on cement as something tugged at the inside of his elbow; an IV stand—metal drawers opening and shutting, the clink and clatter of tools, the slosh of a bottle.

Curiosity and confusion soured together in Tommy’s gut, and inside the still prison of his body he trembled with the effort of helplessness, chafed at the rising panic.

_Wait._

_Wait, wait, wait_.

At long last, a door somewhere in the large room clattered open—a door to the outside, briefly letting in far-off street sounds; _escape_ —and Tommy’s wait began drawing to an end.

Footsteps muddled as two new pairs shuffled in from the outside, and Tommy’s erstwhile companion crossed the floor to join them. Tommy slowly let his illusion fall away as voices murmured to one another, indistinct and low. He tensed, shifting his arm carefully to wind the IV line taped inside his elbow around his forearm.

But then—

“I thought you said he was waking up. Did you sedate him again?”

Tommy’s brows twitched, lips parting on a sharp gasp.

 _No_.

The voice from before: “Felicity—”

 _Felicity. Here. No_.

Fear broke loose of his hold on it and screamed through Tommy’s chest. In an instant, he was sitting up, eyes open and squinting across the room as his arms almost buckled under him and dizziness swirled the room like a glass of water. “Felicity!”

His voice was a rasp, parched—but _there_ , there! She was only some fifteen feet away, standing with—standing with—

Tommy froze. His eyes widened and his mouth fell open, throat closing up to a pinhole.

Oliver.

Felicity swung around, and the second she saw his face she shoved past John Diggle and _Oliver_ —their hands reaching after her, their faces tense and worried, and _god_ they should be, they should be sickened and terrified and _furious_ , and _why were they letting her go to him_.

She flew to his side, and Tommy’s eyes ripped from the strange anguish of Oliver’s face as Felicity’s fingers closed around his right arm. He stared into her face, eye to eye, and found himself thrown by the pinched intensity of her expression.

“Felicity, what… why—”

“Tommy,” she cut across his harsh whisper in a voice that was too loud. “Tommy, it’s me. It’s okay, we made it. You’re—” she bit her lips, swallowed, and her brows tilted to stern, determined slashes over eyes that burned with meaning. “We’re safe.”

“We’re…” Tommy searched her face, lifted his hand towards her only for the IV line to jerk it short. He stared at her face, her smoother curls and the light makeup on her skin only deepening his sense of distortion. “I don’t understand.”

Her chin sliced sharply through the air with the quick turn of her head, jaw clenched stubbornly, a familiarity he found oddly comforting as she looked at Diggle and Oliver. Her fingers squeezing his arm, Felicity turned back to him and leaned in close, lifting one hand—shaking, but resolute—and cupping his bristled cheek.

“Tommy, listen to me.” She held his gaze and leaned in closer, teeth raking over her bottom lip nervously. Voice dropping to a low whisper—too low to carry, just for _him_ —she pressed her hand harder against his face. “They don’t know. They don’t know it was you.”

For a moment, utter confusion screwed up his face, until finally realization dropped through him like a stone.

They didn’t know it was _Tommy_ who had taken her. Tommy who had held Felicity prisoner, interrogated and frightened her. Tommy who had endangered her very life.

 _Oliver_ didn’t know.

“ _Tommy_ ,” she hissed, voice trembling with intensity. Her eyes burned into his, fierce and demanding and—afraid. “They _don’t know_.”

His lips formed a question, but air gave it no sound, and Felicity brought her other hand up to cradle his face between them. She pulled his head in close, and Tommy’s heart thudded like a fist against his breastbone.

Tilting her head, she brought her mouth to his ear, her breath a hot, rapid rush against his skin as she hissed, “And you are not going to tell them.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a handful of people (presumably new readers, hello!) asking what my likely update schedule will be. I'm sorry to inform you I don't have one, as the schedule is pretty much "as soon as it's done, it's yours." I have a full time job and end up unfortunately exhausted at the end of the average weekday, which limits the bulk of my writing to weekends. Given the average chapter is clocking in between 20-30 pages of late, that generally means updates take 4-6 weeks. Sometimes it will be more, sometimes less; it all depends.
> 
> I appreciate your patience and hope you will all continue to bear with me. ;) This wouldn't be half as much fun without you all.


	3. Just Carry On (and the Shadows Will Never Find You)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your incredibly humbling and flattering responses, and also for your patience in waiting for this chapter to arrive. I had certainly hoped to have this out in less than two months, but it's been a rough several weeks in a number of ways. Hopefully these next thirty pages should help to make up for the long wait. ;) Things for our heroes should start moving a bit faster after this one.

Felicity held Tommy’s face between her hands, searching his eyes, waiting. Demanding.

 _You are not going to tell them_.

His brow screwed up, he brought his hands up to loosely circle her wrists. Anchoring, not pulling away.

He didn’t understand.

Felicity’s fingertips pressed harder into his jaw, his temples. Her thumbs, in contrast, stroked a rasp over his bristled cheeks. Her breath fanned hot and shaky over his chin as she whispered, “I need more time. I just need more time.”

“But—” he began.

One of her hands slipped back into his hair, a touch so startlingly intimate that the protest died, strangled, in his throat. The gesture was tender, reassuring; the flare of her nostrils, the white-press of her lips, were not.

Moving her mouth back to his ear, her voice rumbled, carried low on heat and danger. “You _owe me_.”

Tommy’s hands tightened briefly around her wrists, and a weight settled, sudden and heavy, in his gut. That guilt, that quiet resignation, more than anything else, was grounding. Because he _did_ owe her.

Whatever she asked, he would give her.

He would give her time. He would give her lies.

 _For now_.

Licking his lips, her breath still hissing against his ear, Tommy turned his head just slightly—just enough to catch Oliver and Diggle in his periphery. Their postures were attentive, wary, vibrating on the edge of waiting action. But they weren’t _afraid_.

There was none of the murder Tommy expected shaping the curl of their hands, the fold of their brows.

It felt, strangely, as if he had been robbed of something.

This feeling he swallowed along with his questions, his doubts.

Time. Felicity wanted _time_. For what, Tommy didn’t need to know. Not yet. Not now. Now he needed to play along.

And so he did.

He let his hands slide down her forearms, raising the little hairs along the path of her skin til his fingers hooked in the bends of her elbows. And he let his head fall forward, let the weight rest on Felicity’s shoulder.

She tensed up against him and her hand in his hair flexed, nails scraping roughly against his scalp. For one whipcord moment she held herself like she might shove him away—and then she forced herself, bone by muscle by breath, to relax. Her hand on the back of his neck smoothed down and across his shoulders, and her mouth pressed to his ear to whisper, incongruously, bafflingly, “Thank you.”

Tommy held onto her, held her close, rested his cheek against her neck, and sickened at the guilty, comforting thrill of it.

He lost himself for no more than seconds in the warmth of her, but still startled when the footsteps hit his brain _too close_ , and he bolted upright, away from Felicity, seconds before—

“Tommy.”

Oliver’s voice broke on his name, and it cracked through Tommy like the creaking fracture of a frozen lake beneath too much weight. Slowly, nightmare slowly, he turned his head and raised his eyes.

Oliver stood less than five feet away.

There was nothing about his haircut, his beard, even his clothes that was unexpected or new to Tommy.

After all, he’d seen surveillance photos of Oliver less than two weeks ago.

Still, his face, his _expression_ —it blasted Tommy with shock, knocked him off his mental standing and left him reeling.

The heartbreak. The caution. These were things Tommy would have anticipated.

The _hope_?

Tommy swallowed hard against sudden, thick nausea.

They stared at each other, Oliver as if he were waking up—and hoping to find he was rising _out_ of a nightmare. Tommy’s breath hissed rapidly through his nose, his jaw aching with the clench of his teeth.

He’d imagined, in the last year and a half, what it might be like to be face to face with his best friend again. Imagined it with a casual, cool detachment that, in the hindsight of knowledge, seemed ludicrous and telling. He’d imagined, in past months, laughing at Oliver.

 _Laughing_ at him.

At his shock, his questions, his dismay.

He’d imagined pity for his oldest friend. His only family. He’d imagined _contempt_.

He’d even, months and months ago, at suggestion he could still hear, still _feel_ squirming beneath his skin, wormlike, snakeline, insidious—imagined his mouth open in laughter and Oliver’s open and _bleeding_. Imagined his own hands around a knife buried underneath Oliver’s sternum. Angled sharply _up_.

Talia had wanted him _prepared_. She’d wanted him ready for it. _Thirsty_ for Oliver’s death at his own hands.

And while Tommy had never hungered for it, never yearned to watch the life go out of Oliver Queen’s eyes, he _had_ been ready. He had been swaddled in the thick insulation of _apathy_ , and ready to leave behind everything he had once been. Easier to walk away, he’d clinically thought once, from corpses.

The dead might haunt you, but the living could look you in the eye.

Felicity pulled away from him, squeezing his wrists in warning as she pulled his hands from her arms. Tommy straightened—wincing, his hand going to his side—and looked back at OIiver with trepidation.

“Oliver,” he acknowledged, voice low and rough.

Oliver’s eyelids flickered at the sound of his name, his weight rocking back from toes to heels. Relief? Surprise? Tommy didn’t know—

— _throat raw, vibrating with desperation, fear arcing acid green in his veins, strong arms, locked around his waist—his throat—_

Tommy swayed on the table, eyes squeezing shut as sense-memory flashed over him.

Oliver stepped forward again—the sound of his boot on the concrete so _loud_ to Tommy—and Tommy’s head snapped back up again, eyes wide and alert, muscles tensing, reflexive.

Oliver stopped. Standing carefully still, he ducked his head to catch Tommy’s eye again. “Tommy.” His voice fairly _ached_ around the jagged corners and sharp consonants of Tommy’s name; a rasp and throb of old pain, new caution. “What do you remember?”

Tommy stared at Oliver, mind racing sluggishly through the possibilities and options and scenarios—what was Oliver looking for? What did he want to hear?

 _What was the correct answer_?

Felicity’s foot scuffed this time on the floor, and the small, deliberate sound stilled Tommy in the eye of his mind’s storm. His hands curled against his thighs around a careful version of truth.

He looked at Oliver and let his eyes unfocus, go distant. Let himself feel heat scorch across his back. “The fire.” His side twinged, and he let it sharpen, let it _stab_. “A knife?”

He swung his head to the left before he blinked his gaze back into focus, looked at Felicity’s closed-off expression and wrinkled up his brow. Reached for her to confirm and lead him. “We got out. We got out?” Her tongue darted to wet her lips, chin bobbing in a short nod. He sighed, shoulders rolling like a slow collapse. “We got out. But…”

Here, the fall of his eyelids, the furrow of his brow, slid from from the shallows of performance to the deep end of confusion. Details slid away from his grasping fingers, hands too slick with blood to hold tight to facts. Jostling and the feel of—tires over road, the intermittent orange glow of streetlights. Cold glass under his cheek.

 _The knife has to come out. Bleed too fast too much but the knife_ must come out.

Tommy sighed again, and opened his eyes. Felicity was close and waiting, watching. He grounded himself on the steadiness of her gaze, and pulled together the fuzzy-edged weakness in his limbs, the tiny, involuntary twitches in his shoulders and back, the heavy muddle in his mind. “The blade was poisoned, wasn’t it.”

A statement of fact, not a question.

Felicity nodded to confirm, but it was Oliver who answered.

“Tibetan pit viper venom,” Oliver interjected softly. “Sort of a,” there was a hitch of hesitation in his voice, minute, but Tommy marked it and filed it carefully away as he turned his head to look at Oliver, “a trademark, I guess. Of the League of Assassins.”

There was an arrowhead sharpness to Oliver’s gaze—and a burning intensity to Diggle’s, over Oliver’s shoulder—as he said the words. Looking for a reaction. For confusion or surprise.

Or for worse.

 _They don’t know_.

Tommy blinked once, licked his lips.

 _And you are not going to tell them_.

“That sounds about right,” Tommy murmured, the confirmation appropriately vague.

Oliver’s shoulders twitched a hair downward; behind him, Diggle frowned.

“You remember them,” Oliver felt out, slowly; he stepped forward again in the same manner, and tucked behind his elbow, held against his wound, Tommy’s hand twitched around the hilt of a knife it didn’t hold. Oliver’s head tilted curiously to one side, his throat bobbing with a heavy swallow.

Whatever words were queuing up in his mouth, Oliver’s emotions on them were clear and messy all at once.

“And do you remember anything after that?”

Here, honesty served him at last, and Tommy let his eyes close, let his mind tunnel backward through murky shadow and twitching, distorted muscle memory.

_The car. The road. Lights flashing in, out._

Tommy’s chin jerked in Felicity’s direction, his eyes still closed. “A motel?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she answered tightly, quietly. “Oliver and—Oliver and Digg found us there.” Her step sounded soft on the cement as she moved closer, and Tommy’s breath caught as her fingers brushed over the back of his knuckles, but fell away again. “Do you remember anything else?”

Tommy swallowed hard and licked his lips, closed his fist tight to keep from following after Felicity’s hand. His heartbeat stuttered into a higher rate, cold sweat beating suddenly on the back of his neck as indistinct shouting and impressions of light and color smeared through his head.

He remembered terror. He remembered rage.

Remembered the bones of his hands creaking with the strain of some violence. Remembered fire in his veins, an explosion of agony in his side, strangling, choking pressure at his throat.

 _So much pain_.

And then—surely, some hallucination, a dream?—he remembered hands on his face, firm but gentle, small. Felicity’s. Her voice—pleading. _Apologizing_.

It couldn’t be real.

And yet…

Tommy opened his eyes, and Felicity stood right next to him, restlessly chewing at her lower lip. She watched him intently, nervously.

But was he truly imagining some hint of concern there?

“You,” he whispered.

Felicity’s eyes widened, color rushing into her cheeks as she stiffened. Slowly, her lip slipped free of her teeth, and she wrapped both arms tightly around her waist. “I—th-that’s, um—you were… we—”

“You had an episode,” Diggle broke in at last, coming up even with Oliver in three even strides. Tommy turned to regard him warily, and Diggle’s expression was full of a mirrored, watchful caution. “Violent. That ever happen to you before?”

“Diggle,” Oliver said, terse and warning.

Digg turned on him with a raised brow. “We need to know. This isn’t the time for kid gloves.”

“I…” Tommy’s mouth hung open, working for an answer. His eyes cut involuntarily to Felicity.

“Hey,” Digg said, pulling his attention back. “I didn’t ask her, I asked you.”

Felicity’s lips tucked, nostrils flaring, fists tightening against her stomach. Tommy knew his answer mattered here.

He swallowed again, licking at his lips, trying to produce some moisture in his desert-dry throat and mouth. “I don’t—” he coughed, cleared his throat.

Oliver turned and hurried to a little mini fridge, pulling out a bottled water. He twisted the cap free and handed it to Tommy from arm’s length. Tommy sipped, swallowed. Sipped again.

Diggle folded his arms, lips thinning with his patience.

“Sorry,” Tommy offered, clearing his throat again. “No. I don’t think that’s really… been a thing.”

“It was the venom,” Oliver interjected, shooting Digg a look. “Just a hallucination.”

Tommy tensed. So he _had_ woken. He looked quickly at Felicity, then back to Oliver and Diggle. “What did I do,” he deadpanned. “Did I hurt anyone?”

The three of them exchanged looks.

Dread sank like a lead balloon in Tommy’s stomach.

Diggle and Oliver seemed to have a brief argument with their expressions before Diggle turned to Tommy and squared up his shoulders. “No lasting damage. Laurel’ll have bruises for a couple weeks, but she’ll be okay.”

The world jerked so hard to a stop Tommy felt—dislocated.

 _Laurel_.

 _No_.

“Laurel,” he whispered, voice cracking on her name. “She knows I’m alive? Laurel was—she was here, she saw me like—” Nausea rocketed up Tommy’s throat, curled him forward over his knees. He put his head in his hands, fingers clawing into his hair as his breath seethed through clenched teeth. “I hurt _Laurel_.”

“You weren’t yourself,” Oliver said softly, but the words washed over Tommy’s skin like oil.

Oliver didn’t know who Tommy was or wasn’t anymore.

Violence and blood.

Treachery, lies.

Oliver was defending a man Tommy wasn’t anymore.

“You were _hallucinating_.” Felicity cut through the miasma of his thoughts with a harsh, implacable tone. Her fingers found his wrist, and he let her pull his hand away. “You thought they’d taken you back.”

Tommy turned his head to look at her out of the corner of his eye. She was glaring but—there again. That shine of compassion in her eyes. No—it was pity.

She saw into the cracks of him to how broken he was at the core.

“You thought they had us both.” Her voice dropped to a hush, her palm sliding over the inside of his wrist. Tommy let his fingers reach up to trace the bones of hers, let her pulse beat warmth into his skin from fingertips to chest. She looked down at their hands, throat bobbing as she swallowed. “You didn’t mean to hurt her.”

No, perhaps he hadn’t meant to hurt Laurel.

But he looked at the dark circles faded by concealer under Felicity’s eyes, at the sharpness of her bones in her face, the uneven tone of her hair.

He had meant to hurt _her_.

“Felicity calmed you down,” Diggle broke in, and Tommy turned to see him watching them with sharp eyes.

Felicity’s hand slid away from his, leaving him colder.

Digg took another step forward, his arms unfolding to his sides, hands loose.

His posture wasn’t threatening, not really.

But Tommy had learned to recognize danger, and it was writ in every line of John Diggle’s face. Tommy couldn’t be sure what Diggle suspected, what threads he was picking up, tying together—but of everyone in this room, Digg was the one least tangled in it all, the one with the most objective view.

 _That_. That made him dangerous, if only to the facade Felicity was trying to construct.

Something about the cut of Diggle’s gaze over the hand that had held Felicity’s whispered a breeze of _relief_ through Tommy. He knew exactly what he was facing with Digg.

Felicity didn’t clear her throat, didn’t elbow him. She just breathed in deep.

“We had to rely on each other,” Tommy spoke as prompted, his eyes still on Digg. “We—I trust her.”

“Mmhmm,” Digg murmured, faintly skeptical.

“You’re bleeding,” Felicity cut in abruptly, and Tommy glanced down at his side. A thin trail of red dripped sluggishly down his side from the knife wound. “You popped a stitch.”

“It’s fine,” Tommy said curtly. He turned and slid his legs off the table, determined to get to his feet. The feeling of being a specimen on a slab made his skin crawl. “It’s nothing.”

“You shouldn’t—Just let me look at it,” Oliver jumped in, darting forward.

Reflexively, Tommy evaded the rushing motion, pushing off the table and pivoting to face Oliver, one hand rising defensively. Oliver stopped short, startled, his blue eyes large and hurt and more starkly afraid than Tommy had seen in what felt like a lifetime—

—and then Tommy’s knees buckled, and he caught himself hard on the edge of the table, weight on his elbows, the room and everyone’s voices swirling around him dizzily.

“Just—step _back_!” Felicity snapped at his shoulder, her hands catching at his ribs. “It’s too much, just give him some space.”

“Felicity,” Diggle, warning.

“I just want to help.” Oliver, aching.

Tommy pressed his eyes shut and pulled himself together, clenching his jaw against pain and weakness as he pulled his legs under him and shoved his weight upright.

“You’re still weak from the venom.” Diggle sounded reluctantly apologetic, even a little concerned. “You’ll need to take it easy for a day or so.”

“I remember,” Tommy sighed, slipping.

A beat of quiet, then he raised his eyes to curious and calculating stares.

“Get back on the bench,” Felicity said quietly, insistent. Her hands pushed at him, almost more hindrance than help as he struggled back onto the table. She turned to Digg with her chin jutting in challenge while Oliver hurried around to the rolling cabinet beside the IV stand. “Can’t this wait, Digg? He’s clearly not going anywhere, and he’s not going to hurt anyone again.”

A look passed between them that Tommy couldn’t read, carrying a weight of history and understanding he only had data points and distant observations to frame context for. Finally, Digg sighed and fell back onto his heels, shoulders deflating.

“Alright. For now.” Felicity’s fingers tightened against Tommy’s ribs—the edges of her nails _biting_ , his skin flinching from the pressure like horseflies—and Diggle shook his head. “We’ll still—”

He was interrupted by the sudden buzzing of a cell phone and, swearing, reached into the back pocket of his jeans to pull one out. He frowned at the screen and heaved a heavier sigh, running one wide palm from forehead to crown.

“Oliver.” Diggle crossed to Oliver’s side, and Tommy tensed at the nearness of both men, pressing his own hand over the top of Felicity’s against his side. It made her nails dig harder, his muscles twitch, but Tommy held onto the feel of Felicity’s bones under his as Oliver and Diggle bent their heads together. Digg’s shoulders sloped in an exhaustion that seemed sudden in the way that things you had only just noticed appeared. “I have to get out of here. Lyla needs a debrief and, listen man. I need the sleep.”

“No. Of course,” Oliver shook his head, clapping a hand to Digg’s shoulder, his other occupied with bandages and antiseptic. “If there’s anything I need to know immediately, call. Anything else can wait til you’ve caught some shut eye.”

Digg sighed, his gaze flickering quickly to Tommy and Felicity, then away. “Damn right it can. But you call _me_ if you need backup.”

Oliver nodded, but Felicity cut in, the irritation at being alluded to as if they weren’t right next to them evident in her tone. “We’ll be fine, Digg. Go home.”

Digg straightened and stepped back from Oliver, eyes on Felicity now and full of some incomparable mix of worry and relief. His lips pressed thin, then released with a tired quirk. “You’re gonna have to forgive me, honey. Last time I left you to go home didn’t go too good. I need a second.”

Felicity’s gasp was quiet, soft, but so close to Tommy’s ear the sound wept pain like blood from a wound.

Her hand slid from beneath his, and he curled his arm around his ribcage as she stepped around the bench towards Diggle. They hesitated only a moment before folding into a gentle embrace.

Tommy felt like a thief, looking. But looking away felt like it would be getting away with something.

So he watched Digg’s hand stroke softly over Felicity’s curls, watched him press a sweet kiss to the top of her head, buried against his shoulder. They murmured to each other, the words indistinct to Tommy’s ears, all but for that one immutable syllable.

 _Love_.

Tommy bore witness to the things he taken and broken until Felicity and Diggle stepped back from one another. He turned his head with a guilty relief—and found Oliver’s eyes on him, so ruinously full, but watchful.

Tommy had known Oliver as long as he’d known himself in any capacity. He saw much more than he let on, and he put it together in quiet when you were expecting him to be stupid, to be careless, to know nothing.

Oliver’s gaze left his for Felicity, but it was less a trade than a thread connected and tied.

Tommy flushed, his skin tight and hot and his gut churning sickly.

He missed Diggle’s goodbyes, blinking back to himself as the door clanged shut behind him. Felicity turned from the door, her fingers twisted together and eyes trading back and forth between Tommy and Oliver, her expression unreadable.

With a deeply drawn breath, Oliver pushed through the building tension and turned to Tommy. “You should let me look at that wound.”

He was facing Tommy, but his shoulders tensed, just a beat, as if he expected Felicity to protest, to offer instead. But she only walked past them, ignoring them as she headed for a bank of computers Tommy remembered once disguising with cardboard boxes and crates.

Remembered frantically texting Felicity for the access code to the foundry to do it.

It felt a literal lifetime ago.

“Tommy?”

He turned back to Oliver and sighed, feeling heavy with weariness. “Back from the dead less than a day and you already can’t keep your hands off me.”

The quip slipped from his tongue with such ease it felt like losing something. Too easy to fit back into that groove, to find and return to the pattern.

Oliver startled at the wry tone, the glib words—and then, blinking, chuffed a breathy laugh. “What can I say, you’re impossible to resist.”

The exchange was well-worn, familiar. And wrong as the twang of an out of tune chord.

Oliver rounded the table to reach his left side, and Tommy chanced a furtive glance at Felicity. She was seated at her desk, hands running absently palms-spread over the edges of her keyboard, back and forth, but her eyes held his true and intense.

 _And you’re not going to tell them_.

Licking dry lips, Tommy fumbled the cap off his bottle of water again and took a swig, while Oliver hooked a nearby stool with his ankle and dragged it across the cement. Tommy clenched his teeth tightly as Oliver sat and laid out his medical supplies beside Tommy’s thigh.

Antiseptic, bandages, needle, sutures, scissors.

For a moment, the objects slid and melted in Tommy’s vision, grew sharper, longer, sinister. The air chilled against his skin, and sound echoed in the room as if a larger, emptier space—echoed with voices, cold, clinical, feminine—

Tommy lurched to the side and caught himself roughly against the edges of the table just as Oliver’s rough palm and callused fingers caught his bicep.

“Okay?” Tommy opened his eyes and Oliver was looking up at him with solemn calm. Patience spackled over yearning over guilt over sorrow over _joy_.

Tommy swallowed thickly around the gorge that rose into his throat, and nodded. “Little dizzy.”

Oliver nodded, not as if he believed him, but as if he was agreeing to pretend to. “We’ll get you something to eat soon. Should help.”

Help.

It would take so much more than food, Tommy knew. Just as he knew he wasn’t worth it, couldn’t begin to deserve it. Would Oliver still look at him this way, still gently dab antiseptic at the wound in his side, still want to _help_ him, if he knew?

Tommy doubted it.

But a _wanting_ to know gnawed at him, chewed him hollow slowly from the pit of his gut and up into his chest.

He raised his eyes from Oliver’s hands to look again at Felicity, at the particular pain and yearning in her face as the monitors raised to life, blue glinting in the tears caught in her lashes.

_You owe me._

Tommy bore the needle in still silence as Oliver resewed the jagged edges of his wound, as he carefully taped a square of gauze in place, and Tommy swallowed the truth that coated his tongue like lead, like poison.

_For now. For now for now for now for now for_

The door at the top of the stairs opened with a sudden and grating scrape of metal and stone, and the scissors were in Tommy’s fist, raised to stab before Oliver could catch his wrist in a crushing, holding grasp.

“Hey, sorry I’m late, but I brought—” Roy Harper stopped on the top step, raising his head from the armful of paper bags he was juggling and taking in the scene before him with quick eyes and a faster frown.

Two bags dropped with soft plops to the steps as Roy reached towards his back pocket, and Tommy bared his teeth, heartbeat leaping in his neck, but Oliver pressed a thumb into the pressure point at his wrist, forcing Tommy’s fingers to loosen around the scissors.

“Roy,” Oliver barked. “No. Just get down here. We’re fine.”

“Tommy.” He hadn’t even heard Felicity get up from her chair, hadn’t registered her covering half the distance between them, but when he turned his head, she was there, head high and hands fisted at her sides.

She said nothing else. Just looked at him.

Slowly, Tommy opened his hand and let the scissors fall. They clattered off the metal table to the floor, the metallic noise faintly musical.

Releasing a thready breath between his lips, Tommy dragged his eyes to Oliver’s as Roy’s footsteps proceeded cautiously down the stairs.

Oliver’s mouth was a hard line, his brow pinched and eyes bright, alert. But it wasn’t fear. It wasn’t anger.

He wasn’t looking at Tommy and reading _threat_.

Licking his lips, Tommy loosely flexed his open fingers and said, low and graveled, “Sorry. Just a little jumpy.”

Oliver’s fingers gently unwrapped from Tommy’s wrist, and he nodded.

“No problem,” Roy sang across the room at them, only slightly sarcastic. “I’d be stabby too in your shoes. Not that you’re wearing any.”

Oliver’s eyes rolled slowly shut, head shaking minutely, beggaring patience. They opened again and Tommy raised a brow, letting his lips curl a faint smirk as he tipped his head at Roy.

Oliver’s nasal sigh had a little snort in it, and for a moment, the curve of Tommy’s mouth was real, warmed by the memory of countless exasperated Oliver Queen sighs over the years. Thea was the usual culprit.

Tommy recalled that Roy and Thea had dated and had to bite back a laugh.

He turned to take the boy in again, his newer knowledge seamlessly sliding under memory to assess the roll of Roy’s stride, the breadth of his chest and shoulders and the hang of his clothes where gravity dragged on hidden weapons.

Flechettes, no doubt.

Oliver’s little apprentice.

Tommy’s stomach tightened at the cool, bitter mockery coating that thought, and he tucked it aside to examine later; another thing to classify as real or not real, as his or _Talia’s_.

“So,” Roy drawled, lifting the half dozen paper bags in his hands. “Who’s hungry?”

The smell of salt and grease, warmed tomato and melted cheese, hit Tommy with a sharp inhalation, filling his mouth with saliva and contracting his gut.

He distantly calculated the length of hours since the bowls of oatmeal he and Felicity had left to crust on the kitchen table.

“Starving,” he answered thinly, and Oliver’s glance on him was quick, brief, but the pull of his brow was a warning.

There was far too much of the hungry predator in his voice.

His gaze drew to Felicity, helpless.

She crossed to Roy as if she hadn’t noticed anything growling and sharp-toothed in his tone, bickering with the younger man briefly before accepting a paper baggie from him and retreating to her desk.

Oliver demurred when offered a burger, and Tommy raised his hand. “I’ll take one.”

“Nope, sorry.” Roy veered the bags of food away from Tommy’s outstretched fingers, wincing in sympathy. “Doctor Diggle’s orders. Light stuff only for the escapees.” Oliver tensed at the word, but Roy either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “Grilled chicken salads for you and Felicity.”

Tommy’s brow furrowed, and Roy went on, mistaking his frown for confusion.

“Too long since you’ve had junk food or whatever. Baby steps.”

Tommy had last eaten a greasy, thick burger only three weeks ago.

Slowly, he swung his gaze across to Felicity, who stared at him as if willing him to read her mind.

“Don’t bother,” she deflected, voice straining with the pretense and the warning underneath it. “I already had this fight. They don’t want us to get sick.”

Ironically, it was the statement rather than the food that roiled acid and guilt in Tommy’s gut.

“You’ll adjust quickly,” Oliver assured him, patting his knee before rising to dispose of the scraps from his minor triage.

Roy dug into one of the bags with a sympathetic shrug for Tommy.

Tommy accepted a plastic container of salad, the edges thin and cold and hard against his palms, and though his stomach contracted and his limbs cried with weakness that demanded to be fed, sourness washed into his mouth, coating his tongue and cheeks and teeth.

_They don’t know._

_And you aren’t going to tell them._

_You owe me_.

—

Felicity picked nervously at her salad, sick of lettuce and grilled chicken.

She scoffed to herself around a bland, prepackaged mouthful, surprised to realize she preferred Tommy’s to this. He’d made it with more flavor, fresher ingredients.

Swallowing a leaden mouthful, she set her elbows on the desktop and lowered her head into shaky hands and wondered if she weren’t suffering from Stockholm syndrome after all.

But she didn’t _miss_ it. She didn’t want to go back there.

She just wanted people to stop choosing grilled chicken salads and telling her she had no other choices.

“Hey.” Felicity’s head came up sharply and she found Roy settling his hip against the edge of her desk, a half-unwrapped burger stacked with lettuce, tomato, cheese, and pickles raised in one hand. Ketchup and mustard dripped down thick beef patties where his fingers squeezed the golden brown bun. “You okay? Get any sleep?”

Felicity dragged her eyes from his burger to his face, curious and open and just a little concerned, and sighed. “I’m—I _am_. I am. That’s enough for now. I got a little.”

Roy nodded and bit into his burger, then glanced slyly over to Oliver and Tommy, awkwardly pretending to ignore each other as Tommy picked at his food and Oliver fidgeted needlessly with the medical supplies. Chewing slowly, keeping Oliver nonchalantly in the corner of his gaze, Roy reached across his body and lifted a carton of warm, golden fries from his other side and set it casually down between him and Felicity.

Swallowing and licking his lips, he met Felicity’s eye again and chucked his chin, brows flickering up his forehead. He scooted the fries a couple inches further.

Unexpected fondness bloomed in the center of Felicity’s chest, spreading warmth outward along her skin. Her lips curled in a smile she was helpless to curb, her teeth pinching her bottom lip as she reached for a couple of fries.

They were just this side of hot, greasy and grainy with salt between her fingers. Yearning sang up her throat in a sudden, bright burst, and she swallowed thickly around it. She tilted her head so Roy would look at her fully. “Thank you.”

He smiled back, a crooked, kind smirk, and leaned toward her to wink conspiratorially. “Hey, we gotta ease you back in, right? We’ll work you back up to this in no time.”

He shook his burger as an example and took another large bite.

Felicity clipped another wide smile by shoving the fries into her mouth, shaking her head.

Roy sat with her in companionable quiet while they ate—and he pretended he didn’t notice that she ate the majority of his fries—and Felicity was grateful for the simplicity of the interaction. Her computers hummed soft and low while they cycled through updates and security checks, the glow of the screens and the vibration traveling through the desktop and up her bones a comfort.

The second she’d pressed that button and the fans and drives whirred to life, Felicity herself felt she was plugging a piece of her soul, her humanity back in. Months kept from the things that gave her power, the tools of her mastery and her might; the breath she’d taken as the screens flickered blue and awake had felt _clean_ in an electric, rising way.

In the space of relief Roy provided by simply not asking her questions, by giving his company and his presence without staring or examining or scrutinizing her, Felicity drew the shattered, outlying fragments of herself closer inward, inch by inch, byte by byte.

She just needed time.

Time to be ready. To feel safe. To breathe. To be prepared for—

She turned her head to look out the corner of her eye at Tommy, his own head angling to catch something Oliver asked him.

—for whatever had to happen next.

Felicity worried the straw of the soda Roy had given her between her fingers, her stomach sinking lower and lower the longer she watched Oliver focus more and more on Tommy. Oliver’s shoulders were straight, high, tense under the soft blue-gray of his tee shirt, his hands restlessly running back and forth over the end edge of the medical table. His head tipped towards Tommy as Tommy awkwardly said something to him.

Oliver’s eyes were so sharp, so attentive.

So feverishly afraid, so frightfully hopeful.

The comfortable hum of the computers shifted to the buzzing of anxious ants marching under Felicity’s skin, her heart tripping into an unsteady race towards the growing fears and uncertainties that gathered like shadows in her head.

Oliver could be asking _anything_.

And what was Tommy saying? What did she _hope_ Tommy was saying?

What might Oliver pick up on? Did he suspect? How could he know that it was Tommy—that the _gift_ of his best friend’s return had come at the cost of three months of Felicity’s life?

What would he do when he found out?

Felicity shook her head a little, squeezed her eyes shut and tented her hands around her forehead.

He would be so angry. Oliver could be unpredictable when he was angry. Tommy seemed to think Oliver would hate him for the truth, might want to _kill_ him for it. And Tommy, Tommy had slipped and slipped downward ever since he’d begun to pick apart the threads that Talia had bound him up in, had ripped and resewn and _altered_ him with.

He’d been so _sorry_.

And while a jumping impulse in Felicity’s gut, in her throat, wanted to snarl and scoff at _sorry_ , wanted to scream and _hit him_ and cry—wanted so much _more_ than sorry—she’d seen the scars he bore. She’d seen the ones scrawled across his surface, and the ghosts of the ones that ran so much deeper than mere _surface_. Had he already paid?

She didn’t know.

And she was afraid that Oliver wouldn’t wait to _listen_.

Tommy had looked at her, when she’d growled at him to lie, and the look on his face—tired and a little angry, angry at _her_ , desperate to be done; like a sword had hung over his head so long he just wanted it to _drop_ , and she was prolonging the wait—

Tommy had looked at her like he just wanted Oliver to give him the end he believed he had earned.

Whatever anger or resentment or—or _damage_ Felicity carried over Tommy Merlyn, she had stood in that tiny bedroom in his apartments with a gun in her hand and no one to stop her.

And in the end, she had let him live.

She had _wanted_ him to live.

If she didn’t want to hurt Tommy herself for everything he had done to her, she sure as hell didn’t want to watch someone else hurt him for it.

The thought of Tommy on the foundry floor, an unresisting, broken, bleeding heap—and Oliver standing over him, eyes burning _cold_ and knuckles broken and shirt splattered with red—

Grease and salt and acid washed up the back of Felicity’s throat and she clenched her jaw, clapped a palm over her lips, mashing them against her teeth. Panic fluttered the chambers of her heart so fast and thin it stole the air from her lungs, spotted the backs of her eyelids with black.

No.

 _No_.

She had to control this.

She could keep this from happening.

She just had to separate Oliver from Tommy until she could get Tommy to agree to a narrative.

Just until she could figure out how they would each get out of the truth of this alive.

“Hey,” Roy’s voice broke through Felicity’s panic, the brush of his fingertips pickpocket-light across the back of her hand letting her draw a quick, full breath.

She opened her eyes and lifted her head, the darkness clearing from her vision. She turned her face to Roy to see his brows pinched in concern, lips pulled into a little frown.

“Too fast?” Roy asked. Felicity blinked at him in confusion, and he glanced down at the empty fry carton. “Maybe we shouldn’t have—”

“No,” Felicity interrupted, hand patting awkwardly across the space between them, trying to reassure him. “I just needed a second.”

Roy titled his head one one side, considering her, unsure.

She smiled at him small and a little tight, but the best she could manage for him right now. “I’m fine, really. Thank you for the fries.” He still looked uncertain, but he nodded, and that was all she needed. Felicity rose to her feet, turning her attention again across the room. “I’ll be right back.”

Her heart pounded as she crossed the room with deliberate calm, eyes darting furtively to try to read the set of Oliver’s mouth, the guarded slope of Tommy’s spine. She had to get between them in time, before Oliver pulled the wrong thread, before he asked a question that would lead down a path Felicity couldn’t control.

“Really, Oliver,” Tommy was saying tensely as she drew within earshot. He didn’t glance at her, but something in the cant of his shoulders shifted as came closer, and she knew he was aware of her. “I’m—I’m fine. I mean, I could use a shirt maybe. Little chilly in here.”

Oliver’s eyes swept in thoughtless assessment over Felicity as she came up beside them before returning to Tommy’s face, his fingers dancing nervously against the tabletop. “I just—yeah, a shirt. I have something around here, I keep some spare clothes in case of—in case. You’re sure you don’t need anything else?”

Oliver looked at Tommy with an earnest strain, as if he was holding himself back from some frantic energy or action, and a little _click_ of understanding echoed through Felicity’s head.

Oliver needed to _do_ something. There was so much, and he was trying to give them both the space they had asked for, the time to recover, to be ready for questions and other people’s reactions and emotions.

But Oliver was terrible at stillness and patience when there wasn’t a bow in hand and a target in sight.

He needed something to do.

And Tommy had inadvertently given Felicity an idea.

“Oliver…” she broke in softly, angling her body towards him and letting an arm curl across her waist, shoulders curving inward, vulnerable and small. He shifted his attention to her with a blink, teeth dragging over his bottom lip as he frowned. “I was wondering…”

In her periphery, Felicity caught the slight deflation of Tommy’s relief as Oliver refocused on her.

“Felicity?” Oliver prompted gently, straightening and stepping towards her.

She offered him a watery smile, fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. “I just, um. I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”

“Anything.” Oliver breathed the word so quickly, with such a burn of insistence that Felicity flushed, her heart shrinking back in her chest in guilt. “Anything you need.”

“Some clothes. Some of my stuff,” she answered, lifting a hand to push her hair off her cheek. “There’s just—there wasn’t very much in my bag. And I miss—I was hoping…”

“Of course,” Oliver cut her off, head shaking. “Yeah, easy. I can—I can go to your place?”

Felicity blinked. “Yeah. You still have the key?”

There was a strange, loaded hesitation, and the rims of Oliver’s ears reddened as he replied, voice peculiarly tight, “Yeah. I have it. How much—what do you need?”

“Um,” Felicity stared at him, still caught off guard by his awkward reaction, and raced her mind to an answer. “Kind of everything? I, I figure I’m probably staying with you for a little while…” She let her eyes take in his face, the nervous dart of his tongue between his lips, the way his eyes couldn’t seem to rest on just her face either. “I doubt I’ll be—going home any time soon…”

“No.” Oliver’s spine snapped straight, brows pulling together and eyes sharpening with his frown. “We can’t risk that right now. It’s not safe. Not yet.”

She curled her fingers into her palms to stifle the rising irritation his fierce protectiveness jerked to life. She drew a long breath. “That’s what I thought. But there’s things I need and that I—” she gulped, winced apologetically, “that I just _want_.” Her voice tapered small and tight, and out of the corner of her eye, Tommy paled and stared at the floor as she said, “I have spent three months missing _my_ things. I’d like… I want…”

Lips parting, Oliver reached for her, letting her fall silent as his fingers brushed up her elbow. “I get it. When I was on the island… I missed everything, but I especially missed the things that had been _mine_. So, I understand. Just tell me what you need and I’ll get it.”

Guilt chewed at her even as relief whispered over her like a breeze. She awkwardly hooked a thumb towards the desk, turning on one foot to indicate he should follow her. (Away from Tommy.) “I’ll write you a list.”

As he trailed after her towards the computers, Felicity glanced back at Tommy. He watched her lead Oliver away from beneath his eyebrows, head still bent, spine curved. He looked… small.

Felicity turned away.

Scrawling a list of items on a notepad was the work of minutes; sending Oliver away with it and a stiff smile mere seconds. He went surprisingly easily. Felicity had anticipated more reluctance to leave her, to be parted from both her _and_ Tommy for any length of time so soon after their return.

But though she marked the oddness, she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, not when it bought her more of the time she so badly needed.

Without Oliver and Diggle’s sharp attention and heavy presences, the room seemed larger and emptier, colder. Still seated at the medical table, Tommy watched Felicity, his eyes on her pointed, burning the longer she ignored him.

He wanted to talk. He wanted to make her explain.

He _wanted_ to tell the truth.

Felicity orchestrated computer updates and diagnostics instead, wielding the silence of the foundry as a shield.

She didn’t give a _fuck_ what Tommy Merlyn wanted.

His impatience and frustration faded to the borders of her attention as the comfortingly familiar resistance of the keys and the love language of prompt and command welcomed her back. Welcomed her _home_. She let herself slide deeper into the glow of the monitors, let the ones and zeroes cover and embrace her.

Couldn’t she just have this? Just this moment?

Just a moment to _be_?

“So. Those are some pretty wicked scars.”

Felicity’s fingers faltered on the keyboard as Roy’s voice broke the quiet with that wry, laconic tone that pretended to apathy and scorn. She turned her head and found him leaning an elbow against the medical cart, head tipped on one side as he regarded Tommy from under half-mast eyelids.

Tommy eyed him back warily, the corners of his mouth pulling down as if he found himself unimpressed.

Roy merely shrugged and pressed on. “Not to be insensitive or whatever, but didn’t you die?”

“Roy,” Felicity snapped, rising quickly enough from her chair that it rolled with a gentle a clatter against the desk edge. “Seriously?”

“What?” Roy asked defensively, straightening as if he didn’t really care. The shove of his hands into his jeans pockets was just this side of sheepish, however. “It’s a valid question.”

Felicity frowned hard at him, arms folding and head tilting to one side.

Tommy drew a sharp breath, recapturing Roy’s attention. “Oh wait, I _do_ know you. Didn’t you date Thea?”

Roy’s mouth snapped shut with an audible click, his jaw squaring up as he glared at Tommy resentfully.

Felicity rolled her eyes and shot Tommy a “not helping” look. He lifted one shoulder in a bare shrug, his expression unrepentant.

“Tommy,” Felicity said tightly, “did you say something about needing a shirt?”

Rolling his lips, Tommy answered deadpan. “Well, I know Roy’s enjoying the view and all but I could be warmer.”

Roy snorted, but his lips quirked up at one corner despite himself as he shook his head, crossing to the cabinet that held various changes of clothing. He pulled out a sweatshirt and tossed it in Tommy’s direction. “To protect your modesty.”

Tommy caught the shirt with his left hand, wincing as the motion tugged at his stitches. He awkwardly pulled the sweatshirt on, sighing gratefully as he tugged it down over his midriff. “Gee, thanks.”

Felicity shook her head slowly, struck by the surreality that the two seemed to be _bonding_. Over snark. It figured, really.

Still. Whatever put a halt to Roy’s curiosity was fine with her.

“So has anybody called Laurel?” Roy asked breezily.

Tommy stared at him, paling further and looking faintly sick.

Stomach twisting into knots, Felicity tugged awkwardly at the hem of her shirt. “Um. Oliver did. She didn’t answer.” Tommy looked at her now, the skin around his eyes and mouth tight with anxiety. “I think she said she had to work. Or she might be asleep?”

Tommy’s eyes went distant and he winced, running a hand over his hair in a nervousness she hadn’t seen before. Felicity chewed her bottom lip, something strange aching in her chest. “I’m sure she’ll be by soon.”

Tommy didn’t answer, just bent over his knees and covered his eyes with one hand.

“Wow,” Roy piped up with a quick breath, “that’s an awkward-ass reunion. That’s rough, dude.”

Felicity pinned Roy with an incredulous stare as Tommy bent his head further with a little groan, fingers lacing behind his neck. Roy winced exaggeratedly at her and lifted his hands in a helpless gesture.

A sudden loud trilling tone erupted into the brief quiet, echoing up into the rafters and startling Felicity into a step back, and Tommy into sitting up straight. They both stared at Roy as he dug into the back pocket of his jeans with a genuine grimace and pulled out a slim cell phone.

He looked at the display and frowned a little. “Uh. Hey, excuse me a sec, I gotta get this.”

He jogged quickly towards the alley door, flashing the display at Felicity as he passed her, showing a picture of his friend Sin.

Felicity blinked at her luck as Roy guided the door closed softly behind him, leaving Felicity and Tommy alone.

Felicity stared at the door, momentarily paralyzed. She’d been desperately itching for this moment, and now that it was here she was frozen.

It lasted no more than seconds, broken by Tommy’s hiss and grunt of pain as he slid off the edge of the table and to the floor. Felicity whirled towards him, brow knitting in irritated concern.

“Careful, you’ll rip your stitches again.” She hurried towards him, hands out to steady him, but Tommy turned aside jaw clenched and hand up. Felicity rocked on her heels, shocked. “Tommy—”

“I don’t like this,” he interrupted tersely. “We’re lying to them.”

Felicity stared at him, wide-eyed, as he tugged up his shirt hem to glance at his wound. The stitches held.

Finally, her tongue unstuck from the roof of her mouth and she drew in a breath. “We’re not lying. We’re just not telling them everything.”

He cut her a scornful glare. “ _Lying_. Felicity, _why_ are we lying? Why are you _making_ me lie to them?”

“ _Making_ you?” She spat, fists clenching.

He scoffed, rolling his head along with his eyes. “I _owe_ you, just like you reminded me. If you tell me to swear on the Bible in front of Oliver that it rains because the angels are sad he doesn’t clean his room, I will back it up with facts and statistics and stake my life on it.” He held himself hunched to one side, obviously in pain, but his eyes burned quietly with the sort of anger that was already banked but no less hot. “You _know_ that. You have to know that. So I’ll lie, for _you_. But it’s still stupid. It’s still wrong.”

Outrage bubbled up in Felicity’s stomach, seared up her spine and the back of her neck. She folded her arms under her breasts, tucking her fists under her elbows. “I don’t want to hear about what’s _wrong_ from you.”

Tommy shook his head, his expression bitter. “Why are you doing this, Felicity? I don’t understand why you—why you’re covering for me like this. I don’t need this protection, I don’t _deserve_ it—”

“Hey!” Felicity snapped, arms unfolding as she stepped forward, her hands shoving at his shoulders. He rocked back against the edge of the table, jaw clenching and looking down at her. Felicity toed up to him, chin high and teeth gritted tight as she glared up. “This is not _for you_. I am not doing this to _protect_ you. It’s not for you!”

Tommy sucked in a deep breath through his nose, and his face closed down to tight, _blank_ lines, all smooth and calm and horribly familiar and two months old. “So I just happen to benefit from this charade then, hm? Completely incidental.”

Felicity made a harsh, disgusted noise in the back of her throat, stepping back  and keeping her hands at her sides to keep from slapping him. “I don’t know what narrative you’re building in this fairy tale of yours, but I am not taking any bullets for you here, Tommy Merlyn.”

“No, of course not,” he assured mockingly. “You’re just unloading all the guns and hiding the ammo.”

Nostrils flaring, anger and denial and accusation crowded up into the back of her mouth and jammed behind her teeth, reddening her cheeks.

One hand curved gently over his side, Tommy straightened with care. “I don’t want to lie, Felicity. I deserve whatever reaction he—that they have. I did terrible things, things I cannot take back, to _you_. I can’t change it. I can’t undo it and I can’t even make up for it. But I can take responsibility if you just _let me_ —”

“This isn’t for you!” Felicity barked, fists shaking at her chest. “I don’t _care_ what you want or how bad you feel or—or—that’s not why—”

“Then _why_!” Tommy snapped, closing the distance between them and glaring back at her, brows furrowed and lips whitened. “Why are you doing this, why—”

“I need _time_!” She hissed, wrestling her volume back down and glancing furtively at the door. She stared up at Tommy and willed him to stop fighting, to understand, to just go along. “Oliver is just so happy to have you back, to have _both_ of us back, and he knows there has to be a catch because there _always_ is. But he doesn’t know, and when he knows—he’s so angry and he’s just, he wants to—and _you_ , you stupid, guilt-ridden, self-flagellating _bastard_ and I just—”

She lurched backwards from Tommy, gulping at air that seemed suddenly too thin, her hands rising to her hair and tugging. Tommy’s scowl turned to a frown of concern, and he stayed where he was as Felicity sucked in a long, steadying breath, eyes on the ceiling before sliding closed.

When she opened them again, she tried again, quietly. “I can’t, Tommy. I’m home, and you’re here and we’re _home_ , and everything we left… and Laurel, god there’s Laurel here and so much to deal with, and—and I shot Malik and Talia’s going to find out, what are we going to do when Talia finds out? I don’t know! I don’t and I’m _terrified_ , Tommy, I’m so scared and I am _so angry_.” Tears sprang into her eyes and she began to shake, trembling all over as her throat thickened and her voice thinned to a thread. “I am so _mad_. I’m mad at you and I’m mad at—at the League because they did this to _you_ and that’s why you did this to _me_. I’m mad. I’m mad at Digg and I’m mad that I can’t just eat what I want or sleep in my own bed and that I still have to be—I have to—I’m so mad and I am just so _scared_ and I just… I just…”

A hiccuping gasp cut her off as tears dashed down her face, and Tommy stared at her, solemn and stricken, hands raising as he padded barefoot over the cement between them, hovering inches away, not touching and so clearly _wanting_ to reach for Felicity that she hugged herself tightly, holding just out of arm’s length.

She opened her mouth and pulled in a long draught of air, pulling a sleeve across her cheeks. “I can’t add Oliver to that. I can’t… handle… how angry he’s going to be. And how hurt and how confused. And what will happen to you. I just… _can’t_. I need…”

“Time,” Tommy finished for her softly, his face finally _human_ again, understanding lighting in his eyes. “You just need time. And not telling… not telling them everything. Not just yet. That buys time.”

Felicity dropped her gaze to the floor, disgusted at the wobble in her bottom lip and the swelling, tear-dampened ache of her eyes. She nodded, swallowing thickly.

Tommy inhaled deeply, held it for a count of ten—silently, reflexively, Felicity counted it backwards from zero—and exhaled. “How much time do you need?”

Felicity stared at a hair-thin crack in the cement for a moment before raising her eyes at last to meet Tommy’s again. “Just a few days. A week? At most?”

Lips pressing thin, Tommy sighed and shook his head, but it seemed to be at himself. “Okay. Then you have it.”

They stared at each other. Felicity didn’t want to thank him. She felt, somehow, that he didn’t want to _be_ thanked.

Good.

She wet her lips, slowly unfolding from the hunch she hadn’t realized she’d curled into around her core. “Then… we should work out what we’re going to say. When they ask. Because they will ask.”

Tommy nodded. “Get our cover story straight.”

“Right,” Felicity whispered.

—

It took less than fifteen minutes to gather and pack the things Felicity had requested. Oliver found the luggage in the downstairs hall closet where she’d said it would be, and was glad he was still borrowing Diggle’s car. He’d need the trunk space.

Clothing. Toiletries. Towels. Her glasses and the spares. Makeup. In the end, he swept everything on her bathroom counter into a cloud-patterned plastic zip-up bag, unsure what was foundation or base or concealer.

He winced to himself, the rims of his ears heating as he brusquely collected Felicity’s underthings from her top drawer. He didn’t look at the bras and panties, didn’t catalogue the polka dots or stripes or patterns, didn’t feel the satin and cotton and spandex in his hands.

His lips helplessly quirked in a confused smile as he packed nearly every pair of socks she owned, hoping that would satisfy the all-caps, thrice-underlined item on the list.

She hadn’t requested them, but he impulsively added a handful of hangered skirts and dresses from her bedroom closet, in case she found she wanted them.

He just had a feeling.

The same impulse stopped him in the hall on the way to the guest room, and he opened the linen closet to select a set of deep lilac sheets and a powder blue comforter that had the softness of the well-used and oft-washed. He made a note to stop in the laundry room downstairs before leaving and grab her detergent.

He remembered, that first night back in his childhood bedroom almost two years ago, how, even though every scent itched in his nose, overpoweringly artificial and chemical, it had still set some strange, raw sense of _I’m home_ unfurling in his chest to breathe in all those familiar, barely-remembered smells and realize he still knew them. That they were still right.

Even if he wasn’t anymore.

He hoped that for Felicity, it would be more the former than the latter.

When Oliver reached the guest room, he stood a moment in the threshold, letting the room he’d been borrowing sink into his skin, drawing in the sight of it, the waning feeling of _fitting_ in it. He wrapped it in the gentle gauze of memories meant to be preserved and tucked it carefully away, secret, safe.

And then, systematically, he scrubbed himself out of the picture.

He made the bed as he remembered it from the first night he’d pretended he would only lie down in it for a moment. He scoured the floors, the dresser and bedside table, and erased all signs of his presence, resetting everything he’d touched to before he’d laid fingerprints on any of it.

Repeating this process in the guest bathroom was even quicker work, and very suddenly, he was done, a pile of baggage waiting in the hall and a pilfered garbage bag holding the remains of his refuge beside it.

As Oliver hauled the luggage down the stairs, he wondered, very suddenly and for the first time, who had done this for Tommy.

Oliver had barely stuck around after the funeral. He hadn’t been able to bear it. The weight of the casket on his shoulder had been already too heavy. Tommy was dead and so many lights in Oliver went out with the life in his best friend’s eyes.

He hadn’t thought of Laurel, left to deal with the shirts Tommy had left in her closet. He hadn’t wondered where Tommy had laid his head after he’d stopped sleeping in Laurel’s bed. Had he gone back to his father’s home? Had he kept a loft somewhere, stylishly appointed and just a little bit messy?

Who had packed away Tommy’s suits and shoes? Where had his Tommy’s sheets and pillows been stored away in the end? Had someone to whom the smell lingering on the bedding meant _nothing_ been the one to strip the mattress bare? Oliver didn’t even know if it had been some government intern, packing away anything tainted by the name _Merlyn_ , or if there had been a lawyer with instructions for consignment or a list of charities or even just the address of a storage facility. Oliver didn’t know what had happened to any of the broken fragments left by the hole of Tommy’s death.

He’d never asked. He’d never looked.

And now Tommy was _alive_. Tommy was home.

And there were none of his things to return to him. Oliver couldn’t fill a suitcase with Tommy’s socks and favorite shampoo. There was nothing waiting for Tommy to welcome him home anymore.

Oliver had failed Tommy in so many ways. He’d never expected he could fail him in _this_ too. Somehow, as guilt crept on needle feet up his spine and tickled at the back of his throat, he felt it was fitting.

His failures were at least complete.

But he stacked Felicity’s luggage by the door, and he set his garbage bag beside them, and a little stone of quiet resolve settled in his stomach. Here was a chance to make up for some of his failures. He could start, he imagined, by helping Tommy really _come home_.

He made a mental note to stop by some of Tommy’s favorite stores when he had the chance as he walked suitcases down to the car and stowed them in the trunk. There was so much to do. Oliver may be a piss poor friend in so many ways, but he was good at strategy. He just needed to identify his targets and organize tasks.

That much, he could be good for.

Finally, Oliver returned through the front door to grab the last item, his own things all that remained. He stood with the door open at his back and surveyed the now-familiar colors and angles of the home Felicity had made for herself, one last time.

It felt, somehow, emptier now than it had been when Felicity was still gone, her fate a question mark he couldn’t answer. As if by removing her most personal things, he had carved the space hollow, excavated it of all true traces of her.

But that wasn’t it, not really, he decided.

It was because, quite simply, she wasn’t _here_.

She was waiting for him now, ensconced safely in the foundry. Where she belonged. He would lock her door as he left, get into the car, and drive through the city and walk through the foundry door and everything would feel _right_ again. With Tommy there too, even more than he could have possibly hoped for.

And so, one hand on the doorjamb, Oliver ran his eyes up the banister of the staircase, let them linger on bright splashes of color on the canvas hanging at the landing. He took a last deep breath and let the air of this place fill his lungs, held it in and let them ache.

Then, slowly, he let it all go.

Mouth curving gently, just at the corners, his boots scuffed across the threshold as he backed through the doorway. Hand on the knob, he tugged it closed and nodded to himself.

It was time to go home.

—

John lay flat on his back atop the sheets, limbs heavy with exhaustion and the weight of his own chest’s rise and fall pressing him deeper into the mattress with each breath. The pillow cradled his head, and he’d stopped fighting to keep his eyes open some fifteen minutes ago.

Lyla lay on her side, cuddled into him beneath his right arm as much as her swollen belly allowed. Their child was a firm bump against his hip, and John’s lips spread into helpless joy as he felt a faint thump from within.

Lyla huffed at the kick, her hand rubbing over the curve of her stomach absently as she let the silence draw on a moment longer.

“Tommy Merlyn’s alive. Well goddamn,” she finally murmured, muffled by the cotton of his tee shirt.

“No kidding,” Digg rumbled lowly, ribs expanding with a slow, deep breath he expelled in a sigh.

He and Lyla had arrived home at almost exactly the same time, and as soon as they’d shut the front door and exchanged kisses hello, they’d begun debriefing in a back and forth of sentence fragments, dropping shoes and jackets and weapons along the path to the bedroom.

They had traded questions and further details through the shedding of day-old clothes and silently agreed neither of them was up for a shower. John had done most of the talking as they’d schlepped themselves into sweats, breaking down the events in the foundry—from triage to violent hallucination—in a hush as they settled into bed, Lyla encouraging him in grunts and grimaces as she struggled to get comfortable around the girth of her distended belly.

Now, it was a losing struggle to stay awake long enough to formulate reactions, much less plans of action, as they processed each other’s past 24 hours and soaked in the warmth of one another’s skin.

“Damn,” Lyla repeated. “We’re sure it’s not a clone or something?”

Digg coughed a snicker, fading quickly more from sound to vibration.

Lyla, however, remained quiet.

Digg stopped laughing. “No. Please be shitting me. Clones, Lyla?”

Lyla’s fingers toyed distractedly with the frayed line of his collar. “Let’s just say ARGUS isn’t Waller’s only project, and I’ve heard things.”

“Jesus,” John sighed. “That’s already more than I wanna know. But no. Pretty sure that’s actually the Merlyn kid we pulled out of there. There’s weird shit going on with him, definitely, but I think he’s the original ass, not a copy.”

He could feel Lyla’s frown against his chest. “Are we sure he really died? Maybe there was some kind of bait and switch, or mistaken identity between the hospital and morgue?”

John let his eyes slide open, a beat of solemn quiet stealing some of the absurdity from the moment. “No. He died in Oliver’s arms. Gone before he ever hit a gurney.” He sucked in a long breath. “Besides. I was at the funeral. I was a pallbearer, actually.”

Lyla twisted her head to frown up at him skeptically. “You? I didn’t think you were close with the guy.”

Digg huffed, not quite a laugh, a little more tired, a little more regretful. “We weren’t. But the funeral home could only scrounge up four guys to carry the casket. And Oliver…” he sighed. “I know Merlyn’s old man was a monster, and _he_ deserved to rot in an unmarked hole somewhere. But his son…? Oliver had to bury his best friend, and… there wasn’t anybody else. I couldn’t let him shoulder it alone.”

Lyla hummed knowingly, her palm smoothing across his chest to rest over his heart. “No. No, I wouldn’t expect you could.”

They held each other for a few warm, slow ticks of the clock, and John filtered his fingers through the ends of Lyla’s hair.

“Your intel was right, though. It _was_ the League.”

“I know,” Lyla sighed. “The first reports from the team sifting over the site started filtering in just as I was leaving. I’ve never seen anything from the League like this. It’s not their style of operation at all. Pattern deviation like this never bodes well.”

“There’s just something off about all of this,” John grumbled, covering Lyla’s hand on his chest with his own.

“You think he’s lying?” Lyla asked, pushing John’s hand up and sliding her palm against his.

He snorted. “Definitely. Both of them, actually. But that’s something… I don’t know. Different. Something else. No, somehow or other, Tommy Merlyn _was_ dead. And the League of Assassins made it so it didn’t take. There’s just a feeling, I don’t know.”

“Well,” Lyla said thoughtfully, “I trust your gut. Your gut has saved both our asses under fire. Whatever feeling you got is worth listening to.”

He hummed vaguely, an uneasy frown shaping his lips. “There’s just more going on here than we can see. And I don’t like how much of the iceberg is underwater. I just feel like, whatever this is, whatever was happening at that base, whatever reason they took Felicity out of her bed and Tommy out of the ground for… It’s not over.”

Lyla thought a moment, then pressed a kiss against Digg’s chest. “It never is. Whatever’s coming, we’ll handle it.”

She threaded their fingers together, and Diggle watched them interlace, his thick and dark, hers long and slender and pale, both of them callused, both of them strong. He smiled. “Yeah?”

She nodded. “Together.”

“Together,” he repeated warmly, craning to brush the top of her head with a kiss.

“Hey…” she hesitated, shifting her weight on her hip to get more comfortable. “Your people are my people, you know that right?”

He squeezed her hand. “I know.”

There was a smile, and a little bit of relief, in her voice when she answered, “Good. I know we’ve been at cross purposes now and then in the past, but sometimes I worry you don’t quite believe I’ll cover you—all of you—if I don’t see the advantage, or if it crosses ARGUS directives. We’re a family now, Johnny. Your people are _my people_.”

“Baby,” Digg said patiently. “I _know_. I do. I mean it. You went more than the extra mile while we were looking for Felicity. I know what you’ve risked. I know you have our backs.”

She looked up into his face, searching for truth. Finally, finding it, she smiled. “Okay. Okay, good.” She bit her lip and the smile broadened, turning a little teasing. “Does this mean you’re gonna actually _tell_ them eventually?”

He barked a surprised laugh, shaking a little underneath her. “I should’ve known you were leading there.”

Lyla shrugged innocently, lifting their joined hands to display her knuckles. “I’m just saying. You still haven’t gotten me a ring, so they’re not gonna figure it out on their own. If we wait a whole lot longer, it’s gonna get really awkward when their wedding invitations come in the mail.”

Still chuckling, Digg lifted their hands and kissed her ring finger. “I’ll tell them. Soon.”

Against his side, the baby gave another little kick, and they both chuckled ruefully. “You promise?” Lyla asked, settling her head back against his shoulder.

John let himself sink more heavily into the mattress, eyes sliding shut once more as he brought their hands to rest against Lyla’s belly, his thumb chafing back and forth over her knuckles. “I do.”


	4. Follow Me Home (Pretend You Found Somebody to Mend You)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be perfectly honest with you all, there were points at which I thought I would never finish this chapter.
> 
> I know it's been months. Months longer than the usual months, even. And I am sorry about that. I ask you to have a little patience and compassion for me, as beyond even this chapter absolutely REFUSING to do the things I had planned for it, and the struggle of ironing all that out, this summer and fall have been, well... one long, fraught battle with depression, in a bad way.
> 
> I'm on an upswing, and hoping to continue it, and ALSO hoping that now that I've toed the plot back in line after this chapter that I will be much faster on the next turnaround.
> 
> For those of you who have borne with me in patience and kindness and incredible loveliness, thank you so, so much. I hope this is even a fraction worth the wait.

Laurel slept heavily, worn thin by exhaustion, wrung dry of emotion and adrenaline so that by the time she arrived home at the midmorning, she’d felt like a faded ghost of herself. Prickling static had fuzzed around her edges as she’d locked her door behind her, stripping out of her clothes and collapsing face-first onto her bed as the white noise nibbled more and more of her, encroaching towards her very core.

As she slipped into sleep, her hand chafed across the sheets to the left side of the bed, remembering a long-gone impression of a body on the mattress, and the warmth he had left behind.

It wasn’t there anymore.

Mercifully, she didn’t dream.

And yet it was with the memory of concrete and plaster dust coating a throat gone raw from screaming that Laurel jerked awake, startled and disoriented as she sat up in a tangled roll of sheets and squinting into the fall afternoon amber that lit her bedroom through her blinds.

Across the room, a muffled buzz rattled from within the purse she had deposited atop her dresser, and it took a few more seconds of continued buzzing and lingering confusion before Laurel realized the sound was her phone, left on vibrate.

The realization cracked down her spine like a bolt of lightning, snapping across her nerves to flush into the thundering chambers of her heart. She gasped into alertness and struggled free of the sheets, swearing as she tripped over a discarded shoe on the way to the dresser.

She dug her phone free just in time, thumb smudging across _accept_ hastily. “Hello?”

A split second, tense pause. “Laurel?”

Oliver. Some faint squirm of disappointment curled around the knot of worry in Laurel’s gut that bore her sister’s name. “Ollie.” Wincing at the rough rasp of her voice—and the throb of her bruises—she cleared her throat. “It’s me. What’s—”

“Laurel, this is my third call. I’ve been trying you for hours.” Oliver’s voice was waspishly peeved, spackled thinly over the palpable combination of worry and relief.

Laurel pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at the missed call icon in the corner of the screen, dumbfounded. Putting the phone back to her ear, she scowled, but said, “I’m sorry. I left my phone on vibrate by mistake. I was asleep.”

Oliver sighed. “No. No. It’s… it’s fine. I just—you didn’t answer. I thought something—”

He didn’t need to continue. She knew just what he had worried had happened.

“I was about five seconds from sending Roy to check on you,” he offered with weak humor, though they both knew he wasn’t joking.

She wrinkled her nose at the thought of Harper in her apartment. “Good thing I answered.”

“Laurel.” He paused, and she could all but see the hesitant purse of his mouth. “He’s awake.”

The static sea returned, a wave crashing over her head and washing slowly down her skin, rinsing her bedroom wall from her vision and numbing the aching white-tipped clutch of her fingers around her phone.

“Laurel? Did you hear m—”

The static—and the image projected in vivid HD of wild, furious blue eyes—dissipated with a sharp-sucked breath that expanded a chest that felt collapsed. “I heard you.” She licked her lips, her exhale shaking as she combed a hand agitatedly through her flat, tangled hair. “Is—is he…?”

“Himself?” Oliver supplied on a sharp breath. “Yeah. I think so. He, um. He knows what he did… to you.”

Laurel swallowed. It hurt. Her fingertips ghosted over the mottling decorating her throat, and tears threatened anew, pricking at the backs of her eyes.

“He was horrified,” Oliver said in a confessional hush. “Laurel, you know he would never h—”

“Ollie, stop,” Laurel cut in quietly, chin trembling. “I think maybe we don’t know what he would or wouldn’t ‘never’ do anymore.”

There was a beat of shocked silence, and Oliver’s voice returned heated with indignation. “He’s still _Tommy_.”

Laurel clenched her jaw, bewildered by the naivete _Oliver_ , of all people, was showing. Just because he wanted it so badly didn’t mean he could insist it into truth. Laurel had felt the strength in Tommy’s fingers, locked around her neck. She’d never seen hatred, rage like that in his eyes before—

“We shouldn’t do this over the phone,” she said, tone hard-edged. “Should I come to…?”

Oliver sighed, the sound crackling over the connection. “Probably best. Meet in fifteen?”

Laurel ran a hand over her hair again, glanced up at her vanity mirror to grimace at the shadows under her eyes. “Make it twenty?”

“Twenty minutes. Okay.”

With that, he hung up, and Laurel rolled her eyes at his brusqueness as she tossed the phone onto the mattress. Her fingertips twisted at dry, frizzy locks and nervous butterflies tickled their wings against her stomach.

It was silly, to worry what she would look like when Tommy saw her again. When he _really_ saw her. He had died. He had died _for her_. And it had been over a year now. She had lost him, mourned him, and moved on.

Hadn’t she moved on?

They hadn’t even been together at the end, she berated herself as she shuffled into the bathroom.

It shouldn’t matter. She turned the knobs in the shower so steam could fill the air, and shed her clothes, the bruises on her throat aching softly.

It shouldn’t matter.

But it did.

—

Laurel’s flats whispered over the cement floor of Verdant, her footsteps echoing faintly in the hollow shell of the building, cold and dark and empty for months now. She approached the back corridor with carefully measured breaths, air blowing hot and ragged across glossed lips as her fingers fidgeted with her rings, spinning them around her knuckles restlessly.

She was dressed in old jeans, a soft maroon sweater. Things she’d pulled from storage. Things Tommy would remember her wearing.

They fit strangely now.

She tried not to think about it as she passed through the shadowy hallway. Her breath caught as the door towards the end creaked open, a silhouetted figure emerging as Laurel’s step faltered.

He turned his head and the light from the foundry painted warm contrasts over his face. Roy.

Laurel’s lungs collapsed in slow disappointment as she exhaled, and Roy turned to meet her eye with a familiar sardonically raised eyebrow, but an oddly sympathetic smirk. He pushed the door wider and stepped out of the way, nodding down the stairs.

Laurel hesitated just on the other side of the yellow rectangle spilled across the floor, mermaid curls swinging against her shoulders as she swallowed. “He’s…?”

Roy’s chin inched up, eyes narrowing slightly as he regarded her thoughtfully. “Fucked up pretty bad. But cracking jokes like an asshole, so I’m guessing that’s the one you’re looking for.”

She forced a tight smile for him, drawing in a steadying breath. “I hope so.”

He dipped his chin in a nod, blue eyes softening. “Hey, if he tries anything funny,” he winked hokily, “I’m hiding right behind you.”

Laurel surprised herself with a harsh scoff of laughter and shook her head, grateful for the sarcastic humor as it loosened the coil of tension in her gut the slightest bit. She stepped up close and pressed her lips mock-seriously, reaching up to pat Roy’s wrist where he crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”

He laughed quietly as Laurel pivoted on her heel to face the doorway.

The layered shadows of the cavernous warehouse and the hall gave way to the brighter lights of the foundry, and for a moment, Laurel was blinded. And as her feet carried her over the upper landing towards the stair, heart thudding inside her chest with heavy, painful strikes, she kept her eyes wide open and held that light in them.

Seeing nothing but blurred angles and the dazzled halos of the bulbs, she took the first step.

She didn’t see the foundry. She didn’t see anyone in it.

Her toes, her sole pressed down on the grated stair—and she saw her bedroom, morning sun streaming in, soft white sheets both cool and warm from air and skin, and Tommy’s smile laughter-wide against her pillow as lightness bubbled up in her chest.

Another step down.

 _Stepping out of the shower, smirking at Tommy’s jeans on her bedroom floor, and the smell of fresh cut chives wafting down the hall, carried by the sizzle of a skillet_.

Another step.

_Tommy slouched down on her couch, throw pillow clutched against his stomach, the nape of his neck sloped with misery; her palm itched to slide against the skin there. Tears glittered in his eyes and jaw jutted forward with that stubborn anger she’d only ever seen his father carve into it._

Another.

_The ache of confusion and shock in her chest, standing in her apartment foyer and staring at the closed door. He left, and nothing he said made sense. He thought he wanted her, wanted them. Made her think it too. How can he say he doesn’t? But he’s gone. He’s gone._

Step.

_Dust and smoke, stinging her eyes; such incredible weight pinning her, the heels of her hands scraped bloody against the cement, shifting nothing, her grit-coated throat raw from screaming. And then—sudden lightness, the first clear breath. Above her, braced, straining, eyes locked tight on hers—Tommy._

Her heel struck concrete.

 _Her father’s arms, holding her back. Holding her up. Screams of denial, of rage, of loss echoing coppery in her mouth. Figures in smudged and stained uniforms bearing a stretcher. They’re in no hurry, and she is_ **outraged** _. He’s bleeding. There’s so much blood, why won’t they_ **hurry** _? His eyes are locked on hers still._

_They are empty. He is gone._

Laurel’s feet carried her forward another few feet before she stopped, drifting to a halt only halfway there as if she’d lost inertia. Between shaking lips she sucked in a breath that felt like a cold blade sliding down her throat. Her hands were fists at her sides, and for a moment she longed for the grounding impact of her knuckles against the weighted bag.

Tommy was there, right in front of her.

_He’s here. He’s here._

He was sitting up now. Dressed in a sweatshirt and the same cargo pants with the dripped-red stain down the leg. His feet dangled where he sat at the end of the metal bench, seeming strange and vulnerable in their nakedness.

Laurel catalogued all these little details, stalling even as a snarl in the back of her head urged her to stop avoiding the inevitable. It quieted for a moment as her eyes snagged on Tommy’s hand—Felicity’s almost lost in his white-knuckled grip, the knot tying them together trembling. Felicity stood awkwardly to the side, tense and drawn and grim-mouthed. Laurel’s brows knit together, and this picture shuffled silently and coolly into the back of her head, for later.

Later. Now she had to look up. Had to look into the dead man’s face. Had to do it _now_.

 _Look up_.

Laurel dragged her gaze at last up Tommy’s arm, over the shoulder not even the thick gray cotton could disguise was broader than her hands remembered. Up along his jaw. Finally, finally, she stared full into the face of Tommy Merlyn.

He looked at her like _he_ was the one seeing a ghost, his skin ironically corpse-white, so pale his wide blue eyes seemed to drown in a colorless sea. A harsh, hysterical scoff lodged in the back of Laurel’s throat, and she swallowed it thickly down, a mirror motion as Tommy’s throat bobbed, the tip of his tongue darting across his lips.

She was inexplicably shocked when tears flooded to bead on his lashes. Strangely and distantly furious when her own eyes stung and dampened.

He broke the silence that had blanketed them like a heavy snow since she walked through the foundry door, his voice rough, squeaking slightly at the end as if having to fight to get out.

“Laurel.”

She was, oddly, struck by the sudden memory of Felicity walking through the alley door last night, almost staggering like the walking wounded as Laurel babbled at her in shock.

She drew a long, shuddering breath.

“Hi.”

—

Tommy couldn’t breathe.

His ears rang, a shrill dissonance, distantly shrieking and scraping like thin knives over his ear drums. His temples throbbed with the thudding, heavy race of his heartbeat, an intensifying pressure on the plates of his skull.

Throat strained, eyes watering, muscles quaking— _he couldn’t breathe_.

The one second tripped to another and then to three.

Felicity squeezed his hand, fingernails pinching.

Tommy’s throat opened like a straw, and he sucked in a thin and reedy breath.

“Hi,” he answered weakly, breathlessly.

 _Laurel_.

All the tinkering and toying, all the manipulation and breaking and rebuilding Talia had done to him had padded Tommy’s mind, his heart, with the illusion that _Laurel_ was a soft and distant memory, fondly held but coolly examined, buttoned up and set aside on a shelf.

He had held glossy surveillance photos in his hands, grainy from the telephoto lens, and dispassionately catalogued her changes, noted her new routines and movements, filing away the new highlights in her longer hair and the hollowed cheeks and the lost weight like they were just facts on a spreadsheet. Because she was over. A part of a past that had stayed buried in a grave Talia hadn’t left him in.

She had been reduced to a weight felt through layers of insulation: felt at a remove.

But here she stood, right in front of him. No miles or cameras or death between them.

Her hair wasn’t as curly now as in the photos. The strands more honeyed, half an inch longer, maybe.

He knew that sweater. Knew how it felt against his palm, cupping her elbow through the fabric, soft and thin enough to feel her bones and heat through the weave. He could recall those jeans—his fingers hooked through the belt loops—dragging them down her thighs—dropping them carelessly on the floor— _vividly_ —

Vivid like the fresh bruises mottling her pale throat with blue and edges of green.

His hands knew those, too.

Gorge rising in his throat, Tommy squeezed his eyes shut, tears dripping off his lashes and dashing cold-hot down his cheeks as he bit at his lips, nostrils flaring as he sucked in a long and shaking breath.

Talia had packed him with so much _distance_. Numbing him with cruelty, with _apathy_.

Now Laurel was so close, just two and a half strides across a cold concrete floor if he only got to his damn _feet_ —

There was no more distance. No more numbness. Laurel stood in front of him like a fresh-ripped wound, a bloom of pain and shock and horror like the bruises he had given her in a half-crazed rage.

Acid washed across his tongue, and he swallowed thickly.

“Tommy.” Laurel’s voice shook over a core of steel, strength and determination. “Tommy, _look at me_.”

Felicity tugged, pulled, _tore_ her fingers free of his. Leaving his hand empty. Leaving him unmoored.

He opened his eyes.

She’d come closer, standing just out of arm’s reach now. There were tears in her eyes, and as he looked at her—her eyes flitting over his face, down over his body, back up to meet his own, so watchful, so cautious, so sharp—a tear spilled over from the corner of her eye.

She dashed it away with a rough swipe of her hand instantly, sniffing and drawing herself up straighter.

It was so _Laurel_ , so tough and determined and fierce in the face of vulnerability—so _her_ —that Tommy found himself smiling, a small, crooked flicker, despite himself. His breath stuttered from his throat in a soundless little laugh, and warmth kindled in his chest.

Familiarity. Love. _Home_.

“You haven’t changed,” he said softly, smile broadening. Saddening. “You’re still _you_.”

Laurel pressed her lips together to stop them trembling, her jaw firming up even as her brows bent up and another tear slipped free. “Are you?” she asked, tight and quiet and hot.

Something stone-hard and unnoticed in Tommy’s ribcage broke with a silent, resonating _crack_ at the question. It caught him inexplicably off guard, and if he’d been on his feet he’d have been knocked off of them. The heel of his hand skidded against the metal tabletop as he swayed and braced his weight.

His lungs faltered in the filling. His voice hitched in his throat. All the world ran in watercolors, and Tommy clapped a hand over his mouth. “God, Laurel,” he sobbed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Her eyes widened just before his squeezed shut, his spine bowing him forward, his teeth grinding as he clenched his jaw shut.

Hands lighted on his shoulders, long, thin, beringed. Laurel.

Her arms encircled his shoulders, and through roaring ears he heard her gasp, felt the wet on her cheek as she rested it against his ear, crying. His forehead balanced on the ridge of her clavicle, and one of her hands slid up the back of his neck, fingers sliding into his hair.

“Tommy. Tommy,” she whispered, over and over, her tone disbelieving, grateful, _fierce_ as if she could, through the power of her own will, pin him to reality and force him to stay, to be real, to be… Tommy Merlyn.

His hands hovered inches from her sides for several aching moments, desperate but terrified to touch her.

These hands had hurt her.

These hands were _covered_ in blood.

In the creases, under the fingernails—and for a measure of it, he wasn’t even sorry.

Some sickly spinning thought in his mind slowed then, and settled suddenly, with a _snap_.

He was not Oliver Queen. He was not necessarily the Tommy Merlyn he had been before, the one who had died for Laurel Lance; nor was he the one Talia had tried her best to bend and break and shape. But he was, regardless, _himself_.

He remembered a conversation with Felicity in that hollow white cell he’d locked her in. He was the man and the monster all at once, and just because there was more storm inside of him than he’d even then understood… he wasn’t willing to let go of _that_ truth.

He had blood on his hands, yes. But that didn’t mean he had to stain everything he touched.

Tommy let his palms curve against Laurel’s waist, warm through the fabric of her sweater, slimmer than he’d known it. His fingers curled and pressed, telling her he was solid; _real_. His hands slid up the hard planes of her back and he let himself squeeze and hold her, and she clung back as if keeping his memory anchored.

He let her hold the lie a little longer, his sobs ebbing to soft hitches in the back of his throat, an ache in his lungs and the back of his eyes, and a clarity in his head.

Laurel’s own tears subsided as if she forced closed a faucet, diminishing to a fine trembling and damp, quick breaths against his neck. Finally, reluctantly—like he might vanish—she eased away, her arms sliding over his shoulders to leave just her hands against his collarbones as she straightened.

He gazed up at her, her beauty sharpened and winnowed by loss and peril, by hard, cold truths and the hungry fire of addiction. Her face was narrower, her cheekbones more starkly angular. Strands of hair clung to damp cheeks, and he reached up to stroke them away.

Laurel had paid a price all unknowing in Tommy’s death and rebirth, in his far away remaking. He let his knuckles graze along the edge of her jaw to slide down her neck. The bruises there were a colorful warning that there might be more cost still to pay.

“I’m sorry,” he rasped again, folding his fingers into fists and setting them in his lap; harmless. She shivered.

“Good,” Laurel asserted firmly, drawing a fortifying breath. She offered him a small, steely smile and brushed her own fingertips over the drying tears on his cheek. “That means something. That you can be sorry. It just… has to not happen again.”

Tommy nodded, a weight sinking in his gut. “I don’t want it to. I don’t think it will. It shouldn’t.”

Laurel’s smile shrunk and she took another step back. She turned her head then and looked over at Oliver—standing silently with Diggle all this time, far enough away to give them the illusion of space but close enough to intervene if needed—for the first time. She met Tommy’s eye again. “That’s not as reassuring as I had hoped for, Tommy. But I have a lot of questions.”

Oliver drew the room’s attention with a breath and stepped closer, joining the conversation. “We all do.”

Digg joined him, arms folded and expression unreadable as his gaze swept over to include Felicity, sitting now in the chair at her desk. “For both of you.”

Laurel’s eyes flickered between Tommy and Felicity, her face sliding into a sharp mask she most often wore in court. “Do you think you’re ready to answer them?”

Mothwings fluttered in Tommy’s stomach, his lungs, an explosion of anxiety that stole his breath and rushed his heartbeat into a heavy, bass-beat thud. He turned his head to meet Felicity’s eyes across the room, whisper-echoes of their cover story prep sliding like trailing silk in the back of his head and the shells of his ears. She held his eye and deliberately released her bottom lip from between her teeth, releasing it from her nervous nibbling.

She raised her chin, and her eyes went hard and stony in resolution, daring and demanding his own in return.

She needed him to do this with her.

 _He owed her_.

Tommy forced his lungs to fill past the iron bands of panic and released the breath in a slow, measured exhale, the static of fear receding into the shadows in his mind. Clarity found him slowly, knife-sharp, red-edged, and familiar. It spread cold and calming through his body, lowering his shoulders, leaving his hands open.

Ready.

He turned from Felicity, coolly marking the suspicious crease between Laurel’s eyebrows as he refocused on her. “We are. It’s a long story.”

A dramatic sigh turned every head, and Roy straightened from his lean against the stair rail. “Well then I guess I better grab a chair.”

—

“How?” Oliver asked baldly, pacing to Laurel’s left. He glanced at Tommy and then away, fingers moving restlessly to keep the images at bay. “I watched you—I held you when—I mean, I saw…”

The echo of thin, bubbling breaths in collapsing lungs hushed in Oliver’s ears with the scuff of his boots.

He stopped abruptly, throat clicking with a dry swallow as he raised anguished eyes to Tommy. For a moment, he didn’t see the man on the bench, but a paler, thinner Tommy, coated in dust and blood and already beginning to cool. “You were dead.”

Tommy stared back evenly, and he would look disorientingly _calm_ if not for the bob of his adam’s apple and the tremble in his lips as he inhaled. “I was. I did. I... died.”

“Then _how_?” Oliver whispered desperately, stepping closer and raising pleading, open hands.

Tommy clenched his jaw, the muscle in the corner twitching as if the answer didn’t want out. His chin dropped, and when he raised his head at last, his face was drawn and pinched with a worrisome mix of dread and resignation. “It’s called the Lazarus Pit.”

Oliver’s muscles locked, eyes widening, and an ice-slither of faint fear dripped down his spine. Those two words resonated in the chambers of his head like a bell toll, loud and low and warning.

 _Shit_.

—

John dragged his bottom lip through his teeth and sighed nasally, eyes narrowing in disatisfaction. “What I don’t get is, okay, say the League of Assassins actually has this private fountain of youth,” he noted Tommy’s grimace at the flippancy, but carried on, “but why do they use it on _you_?” He tilted his head on one side, keeping his expression curious, calm—but sharp. “What does that do for them?”

Tommy regarded him with a wariness Digg had to respect, even if it was probably only going to complicate things. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t really know. I don’t know why me. Revenge against my dad, to pay his debts, I don’t know. I think… more and more, I think I was an experiment.”

“An experiment in what?” John pressed, frowning.

Tommy barked a hard, humorless chuckle, breaking Digg’s gaze to close his eyes. “Everything,” he sighed, bitter, defeated. “Everything.”

—

“Why?” Laurel whispered, horrified by the bare, stark sketch of horrors Tommy had drawn for them. Then, louder, angry: “Who would do this to you?”

Her nails and her rings bit at her skin as she clenched her fists ,the desire to find the person who would raise Tommy, _her Tommy_ , from the dead just to—to break him, to tinker on him like a science experiment, and hang them in Ted’s gym beside the punching bag.

“That’s a good question,” Diggle interjected incisively, and Laurel turned to glare at him for want of a target. He paid her no mind, focused on Tommy with a calculating gaze that made her want to snarl. “This Lazarus thing, they’re not gonna let just anybody dip a body in it, right?”

“No.” The soft word didn’t come from Tommy, but from Oliver, and Laurel turned a frown on him to find him pale and grim. He stared right at Tommy. “The Lazarus Pit is… legendary. Practically mythic. There were stories that it was guarded zealously by a brutal demon.”

Tommy sighed wearily and raised his head to meet Oliver’s gaze straight on.

Oliver’s hands hung at his sides, and the line of his shoulders, the angle of his head—for a moment, Laurel was reminded all over again how much Oliver had been carved and whittled and reformed from the soft, cheerful, careless boy she’d handed a fragile heart and into this: scarred and battle-weathered. A red-handed warrior with eyes darker than had ever sat in the face of _Ollie_.

His chest expanded with a deep breath. “The stories meant Ra’s al Ghul. The Demon’s Head. The _leader_ of the League of Assassins.” He hesitated one last heartbeat, then asked, “Was it him, Tommy?”

Tommy stared back and let a long, silent moment stretch between question and answer. His spine hunched, arms loosely crossed over his stomach protectively, but his eyes—his eyes were cold and unreadable and _dead_ in a way far more chilling than the emptiness she had witnessed on that gurney last year.

For a moment, she wanted to rush between them, stand in front of Tommy and growl at Oliver to back off, to stop here. She wanted, for just a moment, to protect Tommy, the Tommy she remembered, from those dead eyes he mirrored back at Oliver. To protect _herself_ from the stark proof of another person she loved hardened and carved sharp and ugly.

Carefully, she drew herself up tall and held her chin high, smothering that desperation inside herself. They needed answers.

“No. It wasn’t him,” Tommy finally answered. His arms tightened over his stomach, and his jaw hardened. “His daughter.”

—

“ _Nyssa_?” Oliver physically leaned in to the outraged hiss, palpable with a heated, rising fury.

“Sara’s girlfriend?” Laurel asked, bewildered.

Felicity tightened her fingers around the arms of her chair, her heartbeat tripping, faltering, hammering at the burn of Oliver’s eyes, the violence promised in the curl of his fists. Her mouth went dry and for a moment, the room threatened to _collapse_ on her if this spark ignited an explosion.

“No,” Tommy cut in quickly, coolly, and the calm, stony implacability of the denial pried Felicity’s throat open, and her chest filled again with air. She blinked and turned to look at his profile, focusing on the hard line of his jaw. “His younger daughter. Talia.”

No one paid attention as Roy asked, “Wait, Nyssa has a sister?”

Oliver’s eyes narrowed, frown deepening. “I didn’t think he had a second daughter. There were rumors, but…” He shook his head.

Tommy chuckled, and the dark, bitter edge of it raised the hair on Felicity’s arms, for a moment throwing her back onto the couch in his apartment, listening to him slowly unravel.

“Whatever you’ve heard,” he said grimly, “she’s worse.”

Felicity shivered, recalling that hallway encounter with the second Daughter of the Demon, the way Talia had looked at Tommy like a clockwork toy, and at Felicity like a bug. That had been bad enough, but it was the brokenness in Tommy that truly hinted at whatever monstrous thing Talia al Ghul was.

As the others exchanged worried looks, Felicity realized they were reading those same warning signs.

John stepped forward then, his posture and expression settling into the attentive, straight-spined pragmatism he’d honed on the battlefield. “Is she going to come after you?”

Tommy didn’t exactly freeze, didn’t quite still, so much as he somehow compacted without moving, a coiling like a spring without the tightening spiral. He didn’t turn his head to look at her, but she couldn’t tear her eyes off him, veins rushing with thin, acidic fear.

“I don’t know,” he finally said slowly, voice low. “Maybe. She’s not the type to give up easily, or to take a loss without retaliating. And whatever she did this to me for…” he turned his hands over on his knees, looking at the creases in the palms like they would read him the story of Talia’s motives. He sighed, lips pressed thin. “I don’t think she’s going to let the time and work just go to waste.”

Felicity’s heart raced as if it were trying to thin her blood, Talia’s cold, cruel eyes clear in her mind. She lifted her hand to her sternum, fingertips rubbing just under the hollow of her throat.

Metal scuffed against concrete—shrill, thin, grating; a sudden and sharp reminder that nothing here was bolted to the floor—and Felicity jolted back into the moment, the flesh along her spine rippling as her breath caught like a knotted thread in her throat. She turned her head with a dry mouth to where Roy sat, at the back of the gathering, just on the rim of the conversation, astride a backwards chair, one forearm braced along the back. He raised his other hand for attention.

He cleared his throat so everyone was looking at him, and Felicity frowned. “Okay, so, here’s the thing that I don’t get.” Digg made a soft, scoffing noise and Roy shot him a quick glare before nodding to Tommy. “You, this chick wanted for some kind of science experiment or whatever, okay. That makes as much sense as anything does around here.”

Tommy’s eyes narrowed, and Roy turned to look at Felicity, his brow creasing. “But why take _you_?”

—

The way Felicity paled and hunched in on herself at the question, it was more as if Roy had fired a gun than asked a question. He winced a little at her reaction, resettling himself astride his seat uncomfortably. He hadn’t wanted to be one of the shadows she was jumping at.

Oliver cut him a hard look, and Roy bristled defensively, chin thrusting out at his mentor mulishly. “What? It’s a valid question. The once and present Merlyn over here makes sense enough, easy access corpse, shitty family ties, all of that. But why Felicity? Either it’s for shits and giggles or a sudden urgent need to start up an assassin IT department, or there’s something else going on.”

“Roy,” Oliver growled warningly, glaring.

Roy glared back. Digg had warned him before Laurel arrived, and he was right; Oliver was way too hair-trigger protective right now to be entirely reasonable.

“Alright, boys, zip ‘em up,” Laurel cut in scathingly, waving a hand sharply. “Maybe try letting Felicity speak for herself.”

Roy rolled a hand in a by-all-means gesture, and followed Laurel’s lead as she turned her attention to Felicity.

Felicity’s gaze darted back and forth between them all, but when she hit Tommy, she stilled. Roy bounced his gaze between them as Tommy gave her a short, sharp nod of encouragement, and Felicity took a deep breath, straightening as if her spine were unfolding steel. She swallowed hard and licked her lips, visibly gathering herself to answer, and Roy almost wanted to unask the question.

He wasn’t Oliver or John; Felicity wasn’t like his sister, and she wasn’t… whatever Oliver was telling himself she was to him these days. But he cared. He _liked_ her. She’d never been anything but kind and friendly to him, from the moment they’d been introduced. She’d taken it in stride when his defensiveness led him to be a snide shit, dishing back with good-natured ribbing—and the occasional hilarious verbal misstep—that Roy couldn’t help but respect, even become fond of.

He didn’t feel the need to protect her, exactly. Ignoring even that she already had her a pair of snarling mama bears in Digg and Oliver, Roy was of the opinion that Felicity could handle herself just fine.

But then, of course, that hadn’t stopped her getting snatched. It hadn’t saved her from whatever hell she’d clearly been dragged through.

But she was home now. And if Roy didn’t feel the urge to stand in front of her armed against all comers, he didn’t want to _add_ to her hurts, either.

He’d done enough unintended damage in the last year to last him a lifetime. But the aftermath had also left him knowing that the hurt didn’t stop just because the worst was over. It was unavoidable; some of it was even necessary.

So Felicity opened her mouth, and Roy leaned forward to hear her answer.

“I was told…” her mouth hung open for a moment as if she were trying to find the words, or as if they were fighting her on the way out. She cleared her throat, eyes flitting quickly to Oliver’s face before dropping to the floor. “I was told I was taken to hurt Oliver.”

Oliver inhaled sharply, a sound like a sucking wound, pained and bloody. Laurel looked back and forth between Felicity and Oliver, expression inscrutable but eyebrows high, and Roy tucked his lips to keep from wincing.

Felicity’s head jerked up, brows lowering to slashes as she frowned. “Not like Slade. It wasn’t about _you_ , not like that. I was—was a piece taken off the chessboard. To hobble the team. Because of what _I_ can do. And to be a distraction.”

“A distraction from what?” Digg asked gently.

Felicity shrugged. “I don’t really know. I think I was—that taking me, holding me, it was just a moving part in something else. But I don’t know.”

Roy fidgeted uncomfortably as Oliver stepped towards her, tears in his eyes and guilt all over his face. He opened his mouth—

“That’s not the only reason,” Tommy cut in lowly, drawing the room’s attention.

Felicity shot him a heated, meaningful look, and some communication passed between them through Tommy’s thinned lips and clenched jaw, Felicity’s flared nostrils and stiff posture.

Roy slid a glance over to Digg and met his eye; Digg’s chin dipped in a fractional nod, brows flickering upwards to say he and Roy were both seeing this.

“What do you mean that’s not the only reason?” Oliver asked in impatient confusion, looking back and forth between Felicity and Tommy.

Felicity broke Tommy’s gaze and glared at the floor, and Tommy turned to Oliver, looking resigned but determined. “Felicity _was_ taken to interfere with your team, to limit your resources and abilities. But that was just one of the reasons. I…” he paused, choosing his words. “We didn’t learn more about the rest of it til we were in the same cell together.”

“Then why else?” Laurel encouraged brusquely, brows pinched together.

Tommy glanced at Oliver, but his gaze fell away like he couldn’t meet his eye. Instead, he turned his gaze to Felicity, and the mix of guilt, sorrow, and fierceness Roy saw there was a curious combination. “To make her like me. Do what they did to me… to Felicity.”

Roy sat there stunned, mind blanking as it refused to conjure the images Tommy’s words would evoke. Diggle muttered a string of shocked curses, and Oliver stood as if frozen, the frost of his silence biting. Laurel stared wide-eyed, tearing her eyes from Tommy to stare dumbly at Felicity.

Felicity worried her thumbs against each other in her lap, glaring focusedly at them as she chewed at her bottom lip.

“How do you know?” Oliver’s voice rasped dark and burning-cold as black ice, only a tick or two from the one Roy had first known growling from under a hood. “How do you know that was planned for Felicity?”

Tommy dragged his gaze back to Oliver, but they were shadowed and hollow, as if he wasn’t truly seeing his best friend. One of his hands slid to his stomach—not to his wound—and pressed. “Because Talia told me.”

Diggle frowned, eyes narrowing. “Why would she tell you that?”

Tommy blinked rapidly, looking at Diggle instead of through him. “To threaten me. To use us against each other. Honestly, I think… just because she could.”

“That’s horrible,” Laurel whispered, one hand hovering at her throat.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Felicity muttered, dark and bitter. Roy quirked a surprised brow, but Felicity crushed her eyes shut and clenched her jaw as if she regretted saying anything.

Tommy drew a breath, looking again at Felicity, staring like he had to keep his eyes on her to verify the constant truth of what he was seeing. “That’s when we decided we had to get out. Whatever it took.”

Felicity’s shoulders rose with a deep breath, and she opened her eyes, slowly lifting her head to meet Tommy’s gaze. They stared at each other in a lengthening silence, a strange and awful mirror of shared weariness and brittle, hammered determination.

They looked… exhausted. Like they were almost ready to collapse under the weight of carrying themselves, carrying each other, this far.

It was a painful, startling reminder that the choices they were retelling were put into desperate, violent action less than 24 hours ago.

Roy sat up carefully, and found himself exchanging glances with Digg, Oliver, even Laurel. Something clicked into the quiet; an agreement that didn’t need speaking.

Diggle stepped forward and interrupted Felicity and Tommy’s silent conversation with a cleared throat. Roy found it especially telling, the way they turned, their shoulders shifting in complementary angles, a strangely coordinated defensiveness.

“I think that’s probably enough for now,” John said softly, nodding to Tommy and turning eyes full of sorrow and compassion on Felicity. “You’ve been through enough.”

“More than,” Laurel agreed quietly.

Oliver nodded, eyes turning inwards, probably already distracted by his massive guilt complex. Roy shook his head slightly in exasperation.

Sighing, he pulled out his phone to check the time. “Jesus,” he muttered, rubbing at the corner of his eye with his thumb. “It’s not even six o’clock. This has been the longest fucking day.”

Digg snorted, and Roy looked up to meet his eye.

Digg shook his head ruefully. “Hell of an understatement.”

—

Tommy shifted his weight restlessly on the cold metal of the medical bench, faintly incredulous that the interrogation—debrief, lie, performance, whatever—had gone so… smoothly.

None of the questions had been beyond what he and Felicity had expected, really. None of it had pushed too hard at the careful web of half-truth and omission they had spun together. Better than that, with every answer they carefully, painfully gave, the others seemed to _believe_ them.

Tommy glanced over Roy and Diggle standing next to each other, speaking lowly, and amended that thought.

They had _mostly_ believed them.

It was enough. It would have to be.

“Tommy…”

Tommy turned his head to see Oliver fidgeting awkwardly a couple feet away. Every time Tommy looked at him was painful, jarring in the way of trying to fit the jagged, bloodied edges of a broken glass back together. Nothing quite fit, and it would never be the same. But it was also breathtakingly familiar, and simultaneously strange and wrong.

Oliver had been the longest-standing pillar of Tommy’s life for its entire breadth—right up until Oliver had died. That was the first time he had had to try and put these pieces back together, shocked and confused and desperately, quietly, seethingly angry that they had fit so wrong, that tiny, invisibly vital bits had been obliterated, and that the thing made whole again was so obviously going to be very, very different.

It had started falling apart again even before it was Tommy’s turn to die. He wasn’t sure the pieces now weren’t too shattered to ever be something whole again. Not now that so many were stained with the bloody red Talia had painted them in.

Oliver stood like he was straining to be an immovable object against an unstoppable force—and failing. The toe of his boot scuffed an inch closer over the cement, his lips parting, eyes shining. “Tommy… I’m so—” his voice choked in his throat. “I’m s—”

It was the flutter of an eyelash. Or maybe the twitch in Oliver’s hand. It might have been some inward curve of his torso, just a split second.

Whatever microexpression or flash-fire body language signal, it was a language older than the words that kept dying in Oliver’s throat, and Tommy had known it longer than anything except his mother’s voice, and responded with the same ingrained, reflexive immediacy, no conscious thought or deliberate movement required.

His back straightened. His arms lifted, opening.

And in one quick displacement of air, Oliver was a solid weight crashing improbably carefully into him, his arms tightening around Tommy’s ribs as his chin tucked over Tommy’s shoulder.

Tommy should have reacted violently. Should have panicked, should have punched, should have _shoved_.

But none of that was the instinctive reaction of his body, or his mind, or even his heart.

His hands pressed against Oliver’s spine. His cheek pressed to Oliver’s ear. His eyes shut like shutters and hot salt fled down his cheek, throat closed tight as a fist and full of needles.

The embrace was a honeyed slice out of time, out of the pain and change and chaos, one simple and solid thing as automatic and easy—and difficult, and painful, and improbable—as breathing. It was just Oliver’s ribcage, Oliver’s beard scratching against his neck, Oliver’s muffled, hitching breaths and his own in counterpoint.

Oliver’s fingers grabbed fistfuls of the back of Tommy’s sweatshirt, and Tommy’s mirrored, and for a startling, dizzying moment, he wondered if Talia had killed off less of the heart of him than they both had thought.

They came apart in jerky, hasty motions, each scraping the wet from the their cheeks with their palms like it could lessen the confusion and desperation between them if it was less apparent on the surface.

Tommy glanced right and found Felicity watching them, her head tilted to one side, a line between her brows and her eyes… thoughtful.

He looked away.

“I’m sorry,” Oliver exhaled, like the words would finally come out now. Tommy returned his attention to him with a frown, and Oliver’s gaze couldn’t seem to still on him, as if he had to take in and compare, contrast, memorize every change. “This is my—”

“Stop.” Tommy’s voice broke harsh and insistent over the word, so heated and sharp-edged that Oliver flinched, startled. “Just… don’t go down that road, Ollie. Just don’t.”

He didn’t want Oliver’s pity, or his guilt. He sure as hell didn’t deserve it.

Oliver’s brows pulled together and he seemed to search for something in Tommy’s eyes. Whatever he found there, or didn’t, his shoulders deflated with a heavy sigh and his chin dipped in a short nod. “Okay. Okay.”

If Tommy had thought the weight of Oliver’s guilt might break him, what followed was _crushing_. Oliver’s lips flickered, his eyes lightening, crinkling at the corners. Slowly, a smile spread over Oliver’s face like a dawning, bright and breathtaking in its relief and joy. A small, faintly disbelieving laugh spilled out of his mouth, and he reached for Tommy’s hand, squeezing it like it was all he could do to touch him so _little_. “You’re _here_. That’s what matters.”

Tommy stared at Oliver, mouth slackening, and felt as if his heart in his chest were a lump of ugly, blackened coal, slowly, slowly sinking, a dirty weight in his gut.

Oliver swept the beam of his smile over to Felicity, and Tommy turned to her as well, stricken, helpless. “You’re both… _here_.”

Felicity paled under the light of Oliver’s happiness, and for a moment, Tommy felt united with her in horror, in shame, in weakness.

But then Felicity pulled trembling lips into a smile to give back to Oliver, her eyes sheening with tears. She had to look away quickly, eyes closing and a hand pressing to her mouth.

Oliver cleared his throat and took a deep breath, finally releasing Tommy’s hand.

Cold, Tommy pulled into himself.

“I’m gonna get you more stuff,” Oliver blurted abruptly.

Tommy’s head and brows rose sharply, confusion wrinkling his brow. “Uh… okay?”

A chagrined grin flashed across Oliver’s lips. “Sorry. Clothes. Stuff like that. If there’s anything specific you need… shampoo…?” He made an awkward, vague hand gesture that curled the corner of Tommy’s mouth helplessly, the corners of his eyes creasing. “I can do a run tomorrow. I know you always had, um. Preferences.”

Tommy snorted softly, a soft, familiar old warmth settling across his shoulders like a blanket, thin and well-worn. “It’s called personal grooming, buddy. The products matter.”

Oliver’s smile was slow, a welcoming home. “You know me. Soap is soap.” They smiled at each other for a beat, and then Oliver ducked his head, throat clearing. “Anyways. We’ll get everything figured out soon. Tomorrow. For tonight…” His smile dimmed, disappeared, leaving him sober and faintly sad. “It’s best you stay here.”

Something in Oliver’s eyes twigged Tommy to his train of thought, and he sat up straight. “Out of sight,” he clarified. “Because I’m still technically dead.”

Oliver flinched, and Tommy _wished_ he felt more sorry for it. “It’s just for now,” he reasoned, but it sounded to Tommy more like pleading. “There’s a cot.” He gestured towards the shadowed back of the foundry, the motion faintly desperate. “I’ve slept on it. It’s comfortable enough. There’s some things in the mini fridge.”

“Sure,” he said flatly. “Of course.” The irony struck him; Felicity freed, it was Tommy’s turn to be secreted away underground. “I’ve had worse than a little alone time.”

The skin around Oliver’s eyes and mouth tightened, his expression pained at the reminder. “We’ll figure this all out soon.”

“Actually,” Laurel broke in, stepping into the conversation like she’d been waiting for her cue. “Maybe not so alone? I’d… like to stay awhile, if that’s okay.”

Tommy turned to her with surprise and not a little trepidation. His eyes dropped to her throat, the ugly marks he’d left on her skin there darkening, and swallowed hard. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

She drew a deep breath, shoulders going up and back and chin lifting, making her neck long and the bruises obvious; she was Dinah Laurel Lance. She wasn’t going to hide those bruises. Or from him. “I’m sure. You weren’t in control of yourself before. The circumstances were… unique.” She pursed her lips, then smiled tightly. “I don’t think it’s going to happen again. Besides…”

Her lashes fluttered against a rush of wet sheening her eyes and she lifted a hand, stepping carefully forward to close the distance between them. Tommy held himself almost painfully still, his hands trembling where he fisted them against his thighs. Laurel’s fingertips brushed feather-light against his cheek, lips parting as if she were stunned to touch skin.

“We just got you back.” Her smile flickered larger, smaller, unsure but unfading. “I need to look at you a little bit longer.”

Tommy just looked at her, swallowing the lump in his throat.

Laurel excused herself briefly to the bathroom, eyes damp and spine stiff, and Felicity rose from her chair to join him and Oliver.

Tommy’s heart raced inexplicably, his fingers twitching as she stopped inches away.

She looked at Oliver.

“You ready to go?” Oliver asked her softly, a little doubt, maybe a little disappointment in his voice.

Felicity gave him a short, reluctant nod, wincing. “I just—” her shoulders shifted uncomfortably. “I—I want to be… not underground.”

Tommy’s eyes shut and he bowed his head, absorbing the words like a muffled blow. He inhaled deeply, then let it go, and felt strangely a little more settled, even as a quiet static of anxiety whispered behind his lungs at the thought of Felicity leaving.

The thought cut off abruptly and Tommy startled as Felicity’s fingers pressed against his wrist. He lifted his head only just in time—

Felicity stepped close, leaned in, lifted her arms—and hugged him.

Tommy’s breath stopped in his throat, hands lifting and freezing in shock as Felicity leaned against him, arms circling his neck loosely.

For a moment, he was nothing but fear.

His muscles froze, his nerves flayed raw, and he waited—waited for the bite of fingernails, for the choking grip—for the cut of the knife.

Felicity tightened one arm around his shoulders, and cupped the other hand against his nape. Her cheek pressed to his jaw, his ear, and her breath shivered down his back.

His lips parted, and air finally passed between them. He blinked, and let his hands settle carefully against her back, not quite daring to press or hold.

“Tommy,” she said quietly, chin brushing his neck.

His tongue felt glued to the roof of his mouth, and it seemed he swallowed gravel, but he responded, just as quietly, “Felicity?”

Her arms squeezed him—but it wasn’t a threat, it wasn’t an act of violence. It was, bewilderingly, a _hug_. It was brief, it was small—but it happened. She drew a breath, and when she spoke against his ear in a tight voice, there was a worry and insistence in it he didn’t understand. “You’ll be here when I come back?”

He didn’t _understand_. He was terrified, quietly and reservedly, that when she walked out that door again with Oliver, he would never see her again. Terrified this impossible dream would show its true nightmare colors, and Felicity would vanish into Talia’s grasp, onto a table, under acidic green waters, the moment she left his sight.

There was some unfathomable echo of his own fears in Felicity’s question and Tommy didn’t _understand_.

Brows pinched tight enough to almost hurt, he let his arms tighten minutely around her back, his fingertips pressing against her shirt. He took a deep breath, his chin brushing Felicity’s shoulder, and shut his eyes. “I will.”

He felt her nod, and then she pulled back and he let his hands fall away, freeing her instantly.

Boots scuffed against cement, and they both turned their attention to Oliver. He cleared his throat, eyes full but expression shuttered. He focused on Tommy. “Tomorrow.”

It was a promise of a word.

Felicity stepped away from Tommy and he had to curl his hands closed to keep from reaching after her as she closed the distance to Oliver. She put her hand into his, and as Oliver looked down at his fingers folded over hers, a tension Tommy hadn’t even noted eased from Oliver’s shoulders.

He watched them walk away until the door shut behind them.

—

They made a stop on the way home.

Oliver was confused at first, and initially reluctant to stop—and more reluctant to let Felicity go into the store. He knew better, however, than to voice that reluctance, swallowing his overabundance of caution and insisting instead only on going with her. It required nothing more than _looking_ at her to understand her request.

Felicity knew precisely what she was after, and they were through the self checkout—Oliver paid; he insisted, and Felicity had no means on her to refuse—and out the door in under five minutes.

When they walked through the door, Oliver was lining up his questions and prioritizing them carefully—by relevance, by urgency, by right to ask—but before he could more than draw breath, keys still in hand, Felicity made a beeline for the bathroom toting the smiley-adorned plastic bag.

The door shut softly behind her, and seconds later the muffled hush of running water followed.

“Okay then,” Oliver muttered awkwardly to the empty room. He shifted from foot to foot, mouth tucking at the corners, before he slipped his keys into his coat pocket and hung it on the wall hook with a sigh.

He wandered through the apartment while he waited and found himself standing in the bedroom, at a loss.

Taking a deep breath, he looked around at the pile of Felicity’s things—as yet mostly untouched—by the wall, at the rumpled bedclothes, and drifted into action without making a conscious decision.

He stripped the bed and dug into one of the bags against the wall to redress the mattress in a set of Felicity’s own sheets—an ombre sunset orange-red-pink set that had struck him as especially _her_ —and a pale blue comforter patterned with clouds. He hadn’t thought to bring the pillows from her bed, and hoped his own would work well enough.

The first task completed, he set about gathering a supply of his own clothes in a low laundry basket, piling in his own toiletries and basic necessities. He took the basket out to the living room and set the basket in the space between the end of the couch and the wall, tucked out of the way. He folded his sheets from the night before and topped the basket with them and his pillow, setting the couch to rights.

When it was done, he set his hands on his hips and gave a little nod of satisfaction.

His space and hers. While she was with him, he wanted her to feel at home.

It occurred to him, rather suddenly, that he had no idea what was in his kitchen, or if he had anything that would appeal to her.

Cringing at what could be a sign that he had spent very little time in residence at his own apartment of late, Oliver scurried into the kitchen and began excavating the fridge.

It wasn’t quite as bad as he’d feared.

The milk was only a few days past expiration, and there was a carton of orange juice and some bottled water keeping the bottles of beer company. There was a loaf of bread in the freezer, which he set to thaw on the counter, some basic condiments, and a surprisingly recent package of lunchmeat in the fridge drawer.

“It’s fine,” he muttered to himself grimly. “We can go grocery shopping tomorrow.”

Mentally, he added it to the already long to-do list and sighed.

Suddenly, at long last, the bathroom door opened.

Forgetting the food, Oliver shut the fridge and moved into the living area.

Felicity stood in the makeshift threshold between bedroom and living space created by the folding screen, dressed in a pair of soft-looking red flannel pajama set that struck Oliver as, well, _adorable_ was the only word that came to mind. It made his chest warm slow and steady, like the welcome thaw of spring.

However, the pajamas weren’t what arrested his attention.

Felicity watched him nervously, teeth worrying her lip gently as her fingers fidgeted with the ends of her curls. Her hair was so sleekly, smoothly curled that it only truly struck Oliver then how frizzed and frazzled it had been before.

But more than that, it was… blonde.

Oliver’s lips parted softly, curling at the corners as he let the color—a little uneven, but chased gold all the way to her scalp—click home with a feeling of _right_ he hadn’t realized until then was missing.

“How does it look?” Felicity prompted tightly, a line of uncertainty drawn between her brows.

Oliver smiled, and let it broaden as he stepped up closer to her. Moving slowly, he lifted his hand to slip a bright curl around the bend of one finger. He met her eyes and nodded. “It’s perfect.”

A pretty flush stained her cheeks and her lashes fluttered, gaze dropping, but her mouth curved in a soft, pleased smile.

“And Felicity,” Oliver said lightly, eyebrows lifting as he recaptured her attention. He glanced pointed at her hairline and then, an almost dizzying lightness bubbling in his chest, he grinned at her and winked. “Your secret’s still safe with me.”

Her eyes widened—and then a giggle burst on her lips.

Oliver laughed in startled response at the sound, and suddenly, they were laughing together, Felicity’s hand on the inside of Oliver’s elbow as she leaned in towards him.

His fingers grazed the skin of her forearm, warm and soft. _Here_. His breath caught, and his laughter trailed off easily into a gentle quiet.

Felicity looked up at him. Oliver’s mouth opened—

—and a grumbling rumble broke the moment.

Felicity’s eyes widened and her face went red. “Sorry.”

Her stomach growled again, and they broke into another laugh.

Felicity’s hand dropped away from his arm to rest against her stomach, and Oliver’s fell empty to his side.

“Um.” He cleared his throat and took a step back, towards the kitchenette. “You want something to eat?” He winced, remembering the state of his fridge. “I don’t have a lot in there right now, but we can hit the store tomorrow… for now, uh…”

He turned into the kitchen, Felicity following as he gestured awkwardly at the still half-frozen bread loaf on the counter. “We could have sandwiches?”

Her brows pulled together in a slow frown. “Sandwiches?”

“Yeah.” He grimaced. “I kind of only have ham—”

“ _No_ ,” Felicity cut him off with surprising force. She was practically scowling, arms crossed tight. “Anything else, Oliver. Literally anything else. Please.”

He felt terrible, carefully suppressing the question her insistence beggared as he groped for what else he might offer. “There’s not really anything… I could…”

He sighed, turned and frowned at the door. He didn’t want to go out and leave Felicity here alone, and she looked exhausted. He didn’t want to drag her back out again, either. An idea occurred to him and he leapt for it, firmly shuttering away the specter of Diggle’s disapproving frown.

Hand fishing into his back pocket, Oliver withdrew his phone and wallet and turned to Felicity with a conspiratorial smile. “How does pizza sound?”

Felicity’s eyes widened in surprise, mouth falling open as her arms slowly unfolded. “Like _heaven_ ,” she confessed emphatically. “Deep dish? With everything?”

A little pang shot through his chest at her earnest hopefulness, and he unlocked his phone to pull up his saved contacts. “Hold the onions?” he confirmed.

She beamed, and Oliver placed the order feeling warmer than he had in months.

When he hung up a few minutes later, he found Felicity had settled herself on the couch. She was curled in against the arm, gaze soft as she frowned into the middle distance, teeth worrying at her bottom lip again.

“Felicity?”

She blinked and turned her head to look at him, wincing. “Sorry. I just…”

She sighed and looked away, frowning down at her hands in her lap.

“Worried about Tommy?” Oliver asked.

It was a guess. She had plenty to occupy her mind, most of it bad. Beyond even that, she had to be just utterly exhausted. He remembered the constant surreality of his first day back in Starling. It hadn’t even truly been his first day returned to civilization, but everything had felt too bright, too loud, too sharp and somehow too blurred to focus on for more than seconds at a time. There had been the jarring dislocation of being _home_ and feeling like a stranger. He imagined Felicity might be feeling something similar.

Yet Tommy was a constant presence in his own mind, a center of gravity dragging all other thoughts eventually back to him. And after that goodbye hug Felicity and Tommy had shared, and the way Tommy had maintained a constant awareness of her presence, the calming, grounding touches Felicity had given him since he’d woken, well…

Oliver felt it was an _educated_ guess.

Felicity’s eyes snapped to his in surprise, a little color warming her cheeks. “I—well.” She sighed again and pushed her hand through her hair, shoving it away from her face. “I don’t like leaving him there alone. It felt… wrong.”

Oliver swallowed, his own guilt sitting heavy in his stomach. “I know. Believe me, I know. I can’t believe he’s… But it’s just for now, til we sort things out. And besides…” he rubbed finger and thumb together, missing the chafe of a bow string. Felicity looked at him, waiting, and he gave a little helpless one-shoulder shrug. “Laurel’s with him.”

“Right,” she answered, but it was clipped, flat, her expression matching it.

Oliver’s brows drew together and he shifted his weight where he stood by the counter, wrestling with himself. Curiosity tickled up the back of his throat, not for the first time. It was cloying on his tongue, and only _asking_ would rinse it out.

“Are you…” Felicity had looked away but returned her attention to him, brow creased as he trailed off, mouth hanging open as he tried to choose his words carefully. He bobbed his head side to side a little in frustration with himself, swallowing a fortifying lungful of air. “I’m sorry if this is, uh. Personal. But, you and Tommy…”

Her lips parted, eyes narrowing in confusion.

The rims of his ears burning, he cleared his throat. “Are you two… involved?”

Felicity stared at him for another second of incomprehension, and then her eyes blew wide, chin dropping her mouth open.

Oliver cringed. “I’m sorry. That’s probably none of my business, it just seemed… you two looked like maybe…”

“ _No_ ,” Felicity burst in, voice loud with shock and confusion. “We’re not— _no._ Definitely not. We were—we were prisoners, we had to-to rely on each other, I just, he was—we never—” Her mouth shut with a sudden click, her entire face flushing as her gaze cut away from his. “It’s complicated. But it wasn’t… it isn’t _that_.”

Oliver stood, frozen, not quite sure what to make of this adamant yet mixed reaction. There was a part of him—selfish, greedy, overinflated in the high of getting her _back_ —that wanted to press, wanted to know what _complicated_ meant, wanted to ask why she was blushing and pressing her fingers to her mouth, why Tommy followed her movements around the foundry with starved eyes. It was the part that had kindled from embers to flames in the shelter of her home, surrounded by her things and her scent but deprived of _her_.

But he shut it ruthlessly down. Felicity didn’t need _part_ of him. Neither she nor Tommy deserved Oliver’s selfishness, not now.

They needed _him_. Present. There for them. Both of them.

Whatever that meant.

“Sorry,” he croaked, throat full of gravel. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No,” Felicity winced, tone soft and slightly miserable, a little bit… lost. “It’s fine.”

Awkwardness settled into the space her words made, abrasive and prickly. Oliver desperately wanted to dispel it.

He cleared his throat. “Pizza should be here in half an hour or so. Have you, uh. Gone through your stuff?”

She shrugged one shoulder, glancing back towards the bedroom. “Some of it.”

Oliver scratched at his jaw, looking up at her from under his brows. “I put some of your electronics stuff in there. Laptop, tablet.” He had to chuckle at the way she brightened, posture perking up and the corners of her lips curving upward ever so slightly. “If you wanted to comb through news or do updates or whatever, I put the chargers in there too.”

Lower lip sucked into her mouth, Felicity narrowed her eyes on him as she thought it over. Finally, she slumped back into the couch cushions with a weary sigh, head shaking. “Actually… I’d kind of rather… not? I just… tomorrow. I can’t deal with anything _else_ right now.”

He looked at the exhaustion in her face so thinly covered by makeup, at the slope of her neck and shoulders under the weight of the day—of the last four _months_ —and nodded. “I understand.” He inhaled deeply, pushing away from the counter to come stand by the end of the couch. “Is there anything you’d like to do?”

She blinked up at him for a moment, and there was the softest look on her face, something like gratitude, or relief, embroidered at its edges by fondness. It made his breath catch and his fingers twitch at his sides.

“Actually…” she drawled, head turning. He followed her gaze to the medium-sized flatscreen television mounted on the wall. Felicity bit her lip as she looked at the darkened screen, a hint of hopeful anticipation lighting behind that soft expression. “Could we maybe just watch some TV? I—” she sucked in a little breath, color suffusing her cheeks as she looked back to him almost shyly. “I kind of really… _really_ missed TV.”

The last part of the sentence was carried waveringly on tears that shone in her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. Pain pierced Oliver’s heart like a needle, familiar and sorrowful. There were different words hiding under the waterline of what she said: _I missed everything_.

He knew just what that was like. It made him remember sitting with Laurel on her living room floor, the cool metal edges of a spoon in his grip and his hand gone icy around a carton of ice cream.

He swallowed thickly and forced his voice to come out smooth, if small. “Yeah. Whatever you want.”

She smiled up at him, the brightness of it twinkling in the damp sheen of her eyes. “Thank you.”

He recovered the remote control from between the cushions in the armchair, touched and hopeful when Felicity made room for him to sit between her and the arm of the couch. He took his place and offered her control of the remote, hyperconscious of the two and a half inches between them as she flipped through the menu of channel offerings.

He didn’t even really know what sort of subscription package he had. He didn’t particularly care now, unless it meant there was nothing Felicity would want.

In the end she settled on a marathon of some half-hour comedy, something called _Parks and Recreation_.

“I just want something light,” she said quietly, confessionally. “I just want to laugh. I don’t want to have to _think_.”

“Sounds good to me,” he agreed lightly, gently ignoring the frustrated tears in her voice at the end. She didn’t look at him, chin stubborn despite its quiver.

He settled an arm along the back of the couch and settled back, letting the rapid-fire dialogue, bright colors, and zany antics wash over him like white noise. Surprisingly, he relaxed into it slowly, some tight knot in his chest beginning at last to unwind.

He was home. Felicity was beside him. _Tommy_ was alive, and only a handful of city blocks away.

He exhaled and it felt as if his lungs were expelling more than old air, some heaviness in his gut dissipating, lightening like fog under morning sun. Felicity stayed curled next to him; she had commandeered the sheet he’d folded at the other end of the couch a few minutes into the show, and it was cocooned around her drawn-up knees, her hands playing under the edge of it beneath her chin.

She eased into the couch cushions, and her hair pressed against the skin of his forearm along the top.

Oliver found himself smiling as Felicity laughed quietly at the TV.

A few minutes into the start of a second episode, a knock cracked rapidly against the door. Felicity startled badly, and to his own chagrin, Oliver had to pry his hand free of the back of the couch to pat Felicity awkwardly on the shoulder.

“It’s just the pizza,” he assured her, rising to his feet and digging his wallet free of his back pocket.

She grimaced and nodded at him, and Oliver strode to the door before the delivery person could get impatient and knock again.

He threw back the locks and pulled the door open irritably, filling the frame with his body. He scowled down a good five inches at the pudgy kid in front of him, hair gel-spiked to a cockscomb point at the top of his head. Kid couldn’t be much older than Thea, but he took Oliver’s glower in stride. The nametag pinned to his zipup sweatshirt read _Rudy_.

“Extra large deep dish for Queen?” Rudy asked, perfunctorily perky as he proffered the white cardboard box.

Arching one eyebrow imperiously, Oliver flipped up the lid to check it was the correct pie. He nodded and closed the box.

“That’ll be $35.47.” Rudy narrowed his eyes at him a little, a look Oliver knew dreadfully well.

He opened his wallet quickly and pulled out a fifty, passing it to Rudy between two fingers as he took the pizza from him. “Keep the change.”

“Hey wait.” Rudy didn’t even look at the money, squinting at Oliver even harder now as he stepped back into the apartment. “Aren’t you—”

Oliver swung the door shut in Rudy’s face with a nasal sigh, throwing the locks and rolling his eyes.

Behind him, Felicity laughed softly. “That still happens, huh?”

Oliver turned around with a rueful cant of his head, lips curling despite himself. “Less than it used to, anyways.”

She shook her head at him, smiling as she unfolded to sit cross legged on the cushions. He couldn’t help smiling back at her as he bent to deposit the hot pie on the coffee table in front of her. “Extra mushrooms. Jalapenos on the side.” She grinned up at him so brightly he felt dazzled. “You want plates?”

She shook her head, but had eyes only for the pizza, hands rubbing together adorably in anticipation. “Napkins will be fine.”

Oliver grabbed the roll of paper towels parked on the counter and retrieved a pair of bottled waters from the fridge. When he turned around, Felicity had the box open and was carefully extracting a large slice with both hands, wincing as long strings of hot, melty cheese snapped around her fingers. “Come to mama…”

Oliver set down the water bottles and paper towel roll, watching Felicity’s face as she delicately bit into the end of her slice.

It was, frankly, a sight to behold.

Lashes fluttering, her eyes rolled shut, brows tilting in and up as an expression of incredible rapture lit her face. She chewed slowly, a soft groan vibrating in her throat.

Oliver’s face flashed red, and he chuckled awkwardly, coughing into his hand. “Uh. That good?”

Felicity flopped back against the cushions, eyes slitting open as she swallowed her mouthful. “You have no idea.”

Ducking his head to hide his grin, he tore her off a sheet of paper towel and sat on the couch beside her again. He glanced at her profile as she bit into her slice again, brows furrowed as if in concentration, or determination to savor it.

For a moment, he forgot his own hunger and just watched her.

Her breath hitched as she took a third bite.

As she chewed, her chin began to quiver.

Oliver’s brows screwed up in concern. “Felicity?”

She swallowed, answering him in a tight, small voice, “I’m fine.”

The fourth bite slowed as first her hands, and then her shoulders began to shake. Her breath came in stuttering, punctuated drags as tears spilled over her lashes to dash down her cheeks.

The weight sank back into Oliver’s gut as he sat frozen, trying to pretend not to stare, torn between following her lead and giving her space, and the desperate chasm opening in his chest, begging him to comfort her, to hold her, to promise her the world.

Felicity swallowed her fifth bite of the pizza with what could only be called a sob; her spine bent and she turned her face away, gasping.

“Felicity,” Oliver whispered helplessly, pained.

Finally, shaking down to the very bones of her, she surrendered and leaned over to drop her half-eaten slice back into the box, snatching blindly at the napkin he still held. She wiped her hands and her mouth, then mopped at her cheeks.

It proved futile as tears only continued to spill.

“I’m—” Felicity gasped, choked. “I’m s— I’m sorry… I—”

She broke down.

Panic lifted Oliver’s hands as Felicity bent at the waist, arms wrapping tight around her stomach as her head dropped forward. “No—shh, shh,” he said in a pleading hush. “It’s okay.”

He gave in and reached for her, his palm sliding over her back tentatively at first. When she didn’t jump or pull away, he wrapped his arm behind her shoulders and pulled her in to the shelter of his body, his free hand gently drawing her head to his shoulder.

Felicity sobbed against his neck, her hands clutching at his sides, fingers twisting in the fabric of his shirt.

Oliver stroked her hair and shushed quietly, tucking the crown of her head beneath his chin. “It’s okay,” he breathed, rocking with her a little. “It’s okay. I’m here. We’re okay. Shh. I’ve got you.”

Tears building in his own eyes, he swallowed hard around a knot in his throat as Felicity’s arms circled his ribs, clinging for all she was worth.

“I’ve got you.”


	5. The Thunder Breaks (When I Open My Mouth)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, five months later... here's 45 pages. Hope that makes up for the wait. ;)

_Warm_.

Felicity sat on the top step of the stair leading up to Oliver’s apartment, her head tipped back and eyes closed as she braced her weight on her hands.

She was, for now, alone. Determined to sink into the moment, she focused on soaking up the sun like a stone. It dappled her eyelids in red and gold, shadowed by the suggestion of blood vessels. The concrete of the stair beneath her palms was gritty, heated by the day, tiny fragments imprinting her flesh. The light bathed her throat and collarbones, her arms, her legs, thirsty and bared to the sun in a short-sleeved loose blouse—pale blue, broken by bright red polka dots—and high-waisted denim shorts.

Breathing deep of the clean, wide-open sky over her head, she let her calves brush over one another, reveling in the silk-smooth friction of her clean-shaved legs. As she’d dressed that morning, she had decided, with the weight of satisfaction you got when something felt _right_ and you were determined to have it, that she would be visiting a salon and soon, for multiple services. Her roots may be blonde again, but her own shaking hands and a box of storebought dye were only halfway to _home_.

Behind her, the door to the apartment creaked fully open—never completely closed, not when Oliver was on one side of it and she on the other—and Felicity tilted her head toward the sound of his step out onto the landing.

“Felicity.” His voice broke the city-quiet softly, tinged by a faint regret for interrupting. “They’ll be here soon.”

She exhaled with a decided lack of hurry, lashes fluttering as her eyes opened on eggshell blue, a dazzle of golden light, and thick, scudding clouds gone soft-edged. She blinked and sat up, reaching into her lap. The quiet plastic _snap_ of the arms of her glasses unfolding sent tingles through her fingertips as she raised them to her face, slipping them onto her nose and fixing them behind her ears. She blinked again, eyes aching only a little at the strain of refocusing as the world sharpened.

“I’m ready,” she answered as she stood, brushing grit from her palms, the rough concrete grating against the rubber soles of her tennis shoes. She turned and offered Oliver a smile as she moved towards him.

He smiled back, moving out of the door to hold it open for her.

She stopped for just a moment on the threshold, looking over her shoulder into the blue and sunlight again as a breeze raised to push against her back, filtering thick and damp through her hair, drawing an electric finger up her spine.

Her lips twitched up at the corners, and though she squinted into that clear, bright sky, Felicity could feel it like a line run, tugging, through her stomach.

A storm was coming.

—

Tommy lay on his back on the cot in the foundry, staring up at the vents and shadowy concrete. He concentrated on deep, even breathing, pooling calm like cool water in his belly. His hands rested on his bare stomach, fingertips idly tapping out the beats of his heart, twitching occasionally to a sound filtering through the thick door leading to the alley.

Outside, he knew, life carried on. Cars and trucks rumbling by on the street, people on the sidewalks. Early in the morning hours, he’d startled awake to the crash and clang of a garbage truck emptying the dumpster in the mouth of the alley. He’d been on his feet before his brain could make sense of the sound, a purloined green flechette tucked into his fist and aligned along his wrist as he half-crouched beside the cot. Once he’d realized the source of the noise, he’d half collapsed against the thin mattress, swearing into the crook of his elbow as sweat cooled clammy at his temples and down his spine. The gash in his side lit up like a line of dull fire, punishing him for the sudden movements.

The pain had been almost grounding.

Pain, injury, Tommy could handle. The pain kept him in the here and now. He could grit his teeth and cover it up with a stiff back or a brassy smirk and keep moving to the next task.

It was the waiting that felt like it might kill him.

In the three days since he and Felicity had returned to Starling, he never seemed to be alone for long. Roy and Diggle were in and out at unpredictable, unscheduled intervals. Diggle’s visits were cool and cautious watchfulness, and brisk checks on the wound in Tommy’s side. Roy was all snark and curious, sideways glances, a combination that left Tommy amused but irritated about it.

Laurel haunted the borders of each day like a phantom. She was vivid to the point of pain for an hour or so at a time—morning, midday, at the end of the workday—but there was something about the way she sat forward by him, her feet planted firmly on the floor, the pointed toes of her heels a compasspoint drawn towards the nearest exit. It was as if she were fighting a desperate instinct to run and never come back, overcoming it with sheer force of grit and will—but only for so long. Like being in the foundry with him was drowning, and sooner or later she had to break away just to breathe.

He understood it in an uneasy, wordless way. There was such a tangle of history and unresolved mess between them that sometimes, unexpectedly, it bled more freely than any tear in his flesh.

Felicity and Oliver had been to the foundry each day. They stayed hours, and while it was always a relief, an unspooling of invisible, taut wire, to lay his eyes on Felicity again—to see her safe, to see her _real_ and outside of the blood-washed, scream-rung tinge of his nightmares—she spent most of the time on the edge of his reach, seated at her desk and immersed in the information on her computer screens. Oliver circled him awkwardly, trying so damn hard to give Tommy space while leaning towards him against the grip of his self control so obviously it was almost smothering.

They spoke with him, but every time the door closed behind them, the words faded and thinned to the memory of sound and tension, his muscles jumping and weak from the strain of performance, of wariness. He would lie back on the cot and squeeze his eyes shut, chasing the muffled echoes of faint small talk, the shape of words slipping ghostly through his fingers.

At night, alone, the silence filled slow and steady, the volume knob in his own head slowly, inexorably ticking higher, louder, _louder_.

_Leather straps biting into his skin, jaw aching and unable to open, head thrashing, Talia’s hand over his nose and mouth, sealing him away from air—back arching away from the table, muffled, cool voices—can’t breathe can’t breathe **can’t breathe** —_

Tommy rolled onto his side on the cot, hands lifting to press at his temples, teeth bared, breath hissing between them as he squeezed his eyes shut.

_Blood between his fingers, under his fingernails; a body at his feet, still gurgling, almost alive yet. The handle of a knife protrudes from the throat._

_Tommy’s knife._

_“No,” he whispers, “no, I—I don’t want to. This isn’t me.” His gorge rises, hands shaking and so, so red. “I don’t want to do this.”_

_Fingernails trail thin lines across his bare shoulders; hot breath against his ear, fanning with a chuckle. “Yes you do.”_

_There is a different body now, a woman. Tommy’s hands are not red now, but wrapped around the hilt of a sword, the guard almost flush with the woman’s stomach. She is already cooling._

_“I don’t want this,” Tommy gasps._

_The voice in his ear is cold and steel and so, so sure. “Yes, you do.”_

_“I don’t want this!” Tommy sobs, on his knees, straddling a man who lies limp. Tommy’s hands squeeze the man’s throat, tight, tighter—something snaps._

_A hand on his shoulder slides up the back of his neck; sharp, pointed nails tickle his scalp, press and press, and the skin breaks. “Yes you do.”_

_Now a man kneels before Tommy, facing away. His fingers are twisted in the hair at the back of the man’s head, tugging his chin back. It’s not how they show it in movies, like paper parting, almost effortless. Not with a blade this dull._

_“Yes,” Tommy says, cool and a little distant, almost curious. He presses the knife down harder, feeling the flesh resist, give. It’s like carving into raw meat. Blood gushes suddenly, pouring over his knuckles, making the knife’s handle slippery. He doesn’t let go. “Yes, I do.”_

—

Felicity’s calm dissipated with remarkable speed in the handful of minutes it took their guests to arrive.

By the time a knock sounded briskly on the other side of the door, she had pressed herself against the side of the fridge as if she might slide behind it or need it to hold her up. Her hands were a restless quest for purchase and purpose, roaming up and down the sides of her shorts, toying with her belt loops and at the hem of her shirt.

Oliver stood from the couch where he’d been watching her pace before she settled by the fridge. He cast her a look that was both questioning and reassuring, eyes calm and one brow quirked as he rose.

Hesitating around a useless, frustrating quiver in her stomach, she drew a deep breath and nodded shortly. He nodded back and flickered a brief smile at her.

Rubbing his hands hastily down the thighs of his jeans, Oliver covered the distance to the front door in brisk strides, making quick work of the locks. Felicity watched the muscles of his back move under the faded red cotton of his tee, her fingers twisting together as she wished she had overlong sleeves to hide them in.

Irritated by the impulse, she bit her lips hard and let the dull spark of pain ground her.

“Hey.” Oliver pulled the door open and stood aside, revealing Diggle standing patiently beyond the threshold.

“Hey,” Digg rumbled back quietly, but his eyes were already questing past Oliver to find Felicity. He offered her a warm smile, the corners of his dark eyes crinkling in a way that drew an answering smile from her as if it were easy. “Hey, you.”

“Hi,” she answered, one hand lifting in an awkward little wave.

Diggle huffed a little chuckle as he stepped through the door, and Oliver sidled over to give Digg room to join him in front of the window.

The doorway emptied enough for Felicity’s gaze to find Lyla just beyond it—smiling gently, one hand resting on the upper swell of her distended belly, barely obscured by the breezy empire-waist navy tunic she wore over leggings.

Felicity’s breath and heartbeat caught together at the sight of her—safe and whole and absolutely glowing with health.

The fear that she had put Lyla and the child she had made with John in harm’s way with her drug-loosened tongue her first captive night had nagged and nibbled at Felicity the entire long months she’d been gone. More than one horrifying nightmare of the things the League might visit upon a very pregnant Lyla Michaels—for what reason? She couldn’t guess, but she’d never understood why they’d wanted _her_ , either—had broken Felicity’s sleep in the blank white hole in the ground Tommy had locked her in.

“Hi, Felicity,” Lyla greeted her lightly, as if this were merely a social visit. “Mind if we come in?”

Felicity blinked back to the present moment with an indrawn breath and straightened from the fridge, offering Lyla a small, stiff smile as she took two cautious steps towards the doors.

Over Lyla’s shoulder, another figure came into view, and though she’d known the _we_ hadn’t meant Digg, had known from the start who Lyla would be bringing with her, her eyes snagged, caught, stuttered— _long, straight, black hair; rich dusky skin, those high cheekbones_ — _white coat_ —and the breath flash-froze in Felicity’s throat.

Her heels dug into the carpet, fingers curling into her palms with sharp-biting nails, and it felt as if her eyes stretched so wide her skin might split, and yet white crowded the edges of her vision, narrowing, _blinding_ —

 _Breath soft and muffled behind a paper surgical mask. Eyes colder than needles and scalpels and sterile tile floors_. _The flesh-crawling powdery-dry friction of latex as brusque fingers press her hip—force aside her jaw—_

_“I’m told there was an incident in your cell. You were damaged?”_

_The cracking, smothered bark of the gun and suppressor. The kick of the warming metal in the bones of her hands._

_Those eyes defrosting in shock, and the bloom of vicious satisfaction in Felicity’s chest that spreads to match the grisly crimson over Malik’s belly. She can feel the wet stickiness of it, between the sole of her boot and the firm resistance of the doctor’s stomach as Felicity bears her weight down, down—I want her to hurt like I hurt—_

“Felicity.”

Digg’s voice penetrated the fog and her eyelids fluttered rapidly, the red-washed memory dissipating, her throat opening with a whistle-thin inhale.

She blinked hard and looked again at the woman standing just behind Lyla.

Warm brown skin and straight black hair were almost the only things Malik and the woman in the cream-colored cardigan had in common. This woman was maybe Hispanic, maybe Native, her eyes hazel, not amber. There was a politely pleasant expression on her face as she waited to be invited in the door, and Felicity flushed, swallowing hard and uncurling aching fingers to rub her hands against her shorts.

“Um. Sorry.” She glanced quickly at Oliver, who nodded encouragingly. “Come in.”

She dug her heels into the carpet so as not to give ground while Lyla preceded the other woman into the apartment. The stranger wheeled a compact rolling case behind her as she followed. She was dressed casually in white tennis shoes and cuffed jeans; her top was a drapey burgundy fabric, and over it she wore a cream cardigan. Felicity flushed. Not a white lab coat at all.

Lyla walked up to her and reached out her hands expectantly. Felicity took them hesitantly, and was surprised by the brisk, strong squeeze Lyla gave her fingers. “It’s good to see you home, Felicity. I’m glad you agreed to this.” She dropped Felicity’s hands and Felicity slid them into her back pockets with an awkward shrug. The knowing look in Lyla’s eye might have been condescending, but instead it felt a little like solidarity as the older woman gave her a short nod. “Well, no use beating around the bush.” She half turned to hike a thumb at the stranger just behind her. “This is Dr. Romero.”

Dr. Romero gave Felicity a rueful smile and a little wave. “You can call me Joy, if you like.”

Felicity summoned a polite smile. “Hi. Um, I’m Felicity.” She winced, shifting her weight on her back foot and gesturing with her hands. “Um, but you knew that, of course, and even if you hadn’t Lyla already said it and you… probably would have picked that up.” Her lips tucked to suppress another embarrassed grimace. “Sorry. I sort of… babble when I’m nervous.”

Joy just smiled, her eyes crinkling warmly at the corners. “It’s fine. It’s nice to meet you, Felicity.” She turned to look over her shoulder at Digg and Oliver. “Alright if I set up here in the living area?”

Oliver’s eyes flicked to Felicity before he answered. “That should be fine.”

Joy pushed her case between the couch and coffee table and knelt before it, and Felicity’s insides began to squirm.

“Alright,” Lyla announced brusquely, clapping her hands once. “You boys get out of here.” Her fingers flicked, eyebrows rising imperiously. “Now. That’s an order.”

“Come on, man,” Diggle clapped Oliver on the shoulder, pushing a little to steer him towards the door. “Let’s take a walk and give them some privacy.”

“We’ll be just outside if you need us.” Oliver practically dragged his feet towards the door, frowning over his shoulder at Felicity, eyebrows a furrow of reluctance and concern as Digg preceded him back out into the sunshine.

For the split second after Oliver disappeared through the door and before it swung shut behind him, Felicity’s fingers knotted together and her breath shortened. Lyla hemmed her on one side, and the doctor was neatly arranging small tools and bottles on the coffee table, and it was all Felicity could do not to bolt for the door, for the warmth and the daylight, for Oliver and John.

The door pulled softly shut—just shut. No lock turned. No forbidding _beep_ sealed her in.

Felicity exhaled with deliberate care and gathered herself into the present moment.

“I can go too, if you want,” Lyla offered gently, tipping her head to catch Felicity’s eyes. “If it’s too crowded.”

Felicity blinked at her and glanced quickly at Joy, who was watching them patiently. Even still, Felicity swallowed her unease and asked, “Would you stay? Please. I could—could use a friend.”

Lyla’s whole expression warmed, her smile deepening as she reached out to reassuringly tap Felicity’s shoulder. “Of course.”

Joy stood. “Do you want to get started?”

Felicity turned towards her and rubbed clammy palms down her shorts, blowing out a long breath as if she could expel the insect-buzz of her nerves. “Do I want to? Not really. But I know I need to.”

Joy moved back to give Felicity space as she joined her by the couch. The doctor gestured for her to sit and Felicity did, her gaze skittering queasily away from the spread of tools on the table.

“I’m just going to sit here,” Joy murmured, sitting on the coffee table beside her tools. “Good?”

Felicity nodded, watching Lyla as she balanced herself on the arm of the couch to Felicity’s right, one hand braced on the back of the couch and a sour purse to her mouth. She caught Felicity watching and scrunched her nose, tone wry as she complained, “I’m not quite as nimble as I’m used to lately.”

Felicity’s mouth pulled into a small but genuine smile and she held onto it for a bracing moment. Then, inhaling deeply, she turned again to Joy, who waited patiently.

Felicity rubbed her hands back and forth across the smooth tops of her thighs. “How much did Lyla tell you? About me.”

Joy held her head high, eyes guarded but not unkind. “Nothing in great detail. Your name. That I should expect to handle you like I might a POW. Nothing about why, and I didn’t ask.” Felicity’s eyebrows drew together and, with a cant of her head, Joy elaborated. “I owe Lyla my life more than once. She comes to me for a favor, I pack up my kit and say where to.” Her eyes passed over Felicity, coolly but not coldly assessing. “What did Lyla tell you about me?”

Felicity glanced at Lyla, but her impassively raised eyebrows were no help. “I know that you work together,” she hedged, unsure if she should let on how much she knew of ARGUS. “And if Lyla says you can be trusted to be discreet, I trust _her_.”

Joy smiled, her mouth a crooked tuck of humor and confidence. “I’ll do my best not to besmirch her reputation.” Her smile faded, brisk professionalism straightening her spine a little. “I won’t press you for any details that aren’t immediately pertinent to your health, Felicity. I’m not here to interrogate you or pry into your nightmares. What you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to. If you want to stop, we stop. I’m here to help you, but you have to want to be helped. Understand?”

Lips and fingers shaking, Felicity drew a deep breath, held it, and released it. She nodded.

Joy smiled at her and picked up a stethoscope, unfolding it and hooking it around her neck. “Okay. Let’s get started.”

It was tense and frequently awkward. Felicity stumbled and stammered, and Lyla gently cut her off from more than one unraveling ramble with a gentle hand on her shoulder. Joy listened to Felicity’s heart, her lungs, and took her pulse. With permission, she took a couple vials of blood for testing, promising to destroy the samples after and backed up by Lyla. In many ways, at the start, it was not unlike a simple physical checkup.

Of course, it didn’t stay so easy. The harder questions had to be asked.

How often did Felicity see the sun during her ordeal? Was she allowed space to exercise at all? Was she kept clean, allowed access to usable water?

“And your diet?” Joy asked with polite interest. She maintained an expression of calm, simple curiosity through their conversation, and the lack of horror and pressure helped to settle Felicity a little. “Did you have proper, regular meals?”

Felicity’s mouth opened and hung there for a moment as she ordered her thoughts. “Um. At—at first, the first two months, it was twice a day. Not a lot of variation? Or a lot, really, in general.” Joy waited patiently for her to go on, and Lyla sat on the arm of the sofa like a benevolent extension of the furniture in her silence. Felicity bit at her lip and carried on. “Twice a day, lunch and dinner. Best guess, spaced roughly seven or eight hours apart. Ham sandwiches, mostly. Potato chips. A cup of fruit, like, apple slices and grapes and orange slices, stuff like that.” She flushed inexplicably, frustrated with herself, with the memory of the monotony and helplessness. “Nothing that would have meant giving me utensils.”

Joy frowned thoughtfully, gingerly taking one of Felicity’s hands in hers and studying her fingernails. “Was there any sort of supplementation?”

Felicity nodded, a sour note on her tongue as she answered, “After the first couple of weeks, there were vitamin supplements with my meals. There was a doctor there.” Involuntarily, her fingers in Joy’s hand curled into a fist. “She prescribed them.”

Carefully releasing Felicity’s hand, Joy blinked, the frown creasing between her brows a little more than thoughtful for a moment. “I see.” Lyla shifted on the arm of the chair, and the two glanced at each other briefly, but whatever they silently communicated, Felicity couldn’t read. Joy returned her attention to Felicity in full. “And after the first two months?”

Heat crawled up the back of Felicity’s neck and her heart raced stupidly, her expression stiffening into blankness as her mind raced to piece together the right words. “After that… I wasn’t kept alone. We had access to better food. More of it. Different stuff. Like, um. Salads, and grilled chicken. Vegetables. Oatmeal. There were still vitamin supplements.”

She sat tensely, feeling as if the weight of her and Tommy’s conspiracy was drawing closed around her shoulders like a leaded cape, waiting for Lyla to ask a shrewd, incisive question. Waiting to be caught in her lies.

But Joy only nodded again, murmuring a quick request for Felicity to open her mouth as she raised a penlight in one hand and a tongue depressor in the other. Felicity resisted the impulse to clamp her jaws shut as Joy directed her chin gently from side to side, peering at Felicity’s teeth and into her throat. “Sounds like it was a fairly simple, clean diet even then. I’d recommend easing back into any sort of heavier or greasier foods for the next couple weeks.”

She released Felicity’s face and sat back, and Felicity pulled into herself a little, cutting a look at Lyla that was both relieved and guilty. A bit sulkily, she said, “Digg said the same thing.”

Lyla’s lips curled up on one side. “I bet you hated that, huh.”

Felicity rolled her eyes, but a blush betrayed her. “I may not have… listened exactly.”

Lyla laughed, and Joy cracked a little smile as well. Snickering, Lyla patted Felicity’s shoulder. “Not that I can blame you, but how’d that go?”

Remembering the cold tile of Oliver’s bathroom floor two nights ago, and Oliver’s hands twisted in her hair to hold it back from her face as acid scoured her tongue, she grimaced. “I binged on pizza and got sick.” Both of the women groaned and winced sympathetically. A smile flickered across Felicity’s mouth, a touch of warmth brightening in her heart for just a moment at the solidarity. “I just… I wanted it back, you know? I wanted to just—I wanted my _life_ back.” She clenched her fists in illustrative frustration, then loosened her fingers as her shoulders sagged. “I guess pizza was maybe… kind of a lame way to do that.”

Joy looked her full in the face and shrugged one shoulder. “I mean, I get it. It’s about choice. Freedom, all of that. And then you got _free_ , but here’s somebody you care about, they’re trying to look out for you, sure, but it feels like they’re still trying to make your choices for you. So you say ‘fuck that.’ Makes sense to me.”

“Besides,” Lyla chimed in breezily, giving Felicity a wink, “pizza is a _delicious_ act of defiance.”

Felicity’s smile bloomed shyly, a frisson of brightness sparkling through her at Lyla’s and Joy’s easy, friendly banter. It was simplicity and understanding, _connection_ free of coercion and threat and imminent peril. It was like sinking into a warm bath at the end of a hard day; light, uncomplicated, a gentle and welcome relief. After three months starved of it, she drank it up like parched earth.

“Okay,” Joy broke the moment regretfully, sighing a little. She patted Felicity’s knee in quick apology. “Shall we get back on track and finish this up?”

Like a nightblooming flower under harsh lights, Felicity’s brief happiness curled quietly back into itself, her smile fading. She drew in a long breath, taking pride in how little it shook. “Okay.”

Expression sobered, Joy waited for Felicity to collect herself before asking, “Were there any injuries? Did you take any wounds, bone fractures? Concussion, maybe?”

Unexpectedly, Felicity swayed.

Gasping, Joy caught Felicity’s hands to brace her and Lyla gripped Felicity’s shoulder, holding steady until Felicity straightened and shook her head, gently extricating her fingers from Joy’s. “Sorry. I just—” she shook her head again, eyes lowered, a small laugh fracturing in her throat bitterly. “The doctor there. When she asked, it was ‘have you been damaged.’ I was glad you didn’t—”

She stopped, tucking her lips, and a beat of stunned silence fell. The air charged with outrage, a fierce, protective anger radiating palpably from Felicity’s right and in front of her.

For a wild moment, she wanted to reassure them.

_It’s okay._

_I shot her._

_I might have killed her._

She clenched her teeth until the urge subsided.

Forcing herself to address the question, Felicity spoke deliberately and softly. “Bruises, here or there. Nothing major. No… regular violence.” She inhaled long and slow through her nose, let it out as slowly through her mouth. “Might have been a mild concussion, a little over a month ago. There was—” Joy was watching her face solemnly, and Felicity swallowed hard, reminding herself she didn’t have to give any more than was necessary. “There was an incident.” She lifted one hand and touched her fingers to the back of her head. “Hit my head on the floor.” Her fingers brushed down her throat. “Someone choked me. Just for a few minutes.”

Lyla’s fingers loosened very purposefully on Felicity’s shoulder, and it was only then that she realized how tight the older woman’s grip had become. The miasma of fury and indignation in the air slowly thinned, and Joy drew a breath and questioned her very gently about her injuries.

Had she had headaches after the blow to the head. Vision problems. Neck pain. Had she noticed any continued pain in her throat, any swelling.

Felicity answered in a dull, measured tone, slowly distancing from herself with each answer. More and more, as the words came, she realized how superficial it all was. How temporary even the worst of her physical damage had been.

Just yesterday morning, after her shower she had looked in Oliver’s bathroom mirror and been unable to find the thin white lines of the heart Al-dhi’b had scratched on her chest.

Three months of fear and anxiety and anger and uncertainty. But she hadn’t been maimed or disfigured. Nothing… _permanent_.

Was she lucky?

She didn’t feel _lucky_. She felt changed forever.

The questions trickled to an end, and Felicity settled back into her skin with a breath.

“Okay,” Joy murmured, chin dipping in a shallow nod. “Physically, I think you’ll make a complete recovery very quickly, with real rest and a rounded diet.”

 _Physically,_ she’d stipulated. She didn’t say the word _lucky_ , and Felicity blinked in surprise.

Joy offered her a small smile, her eyes sorrowful. “Doctor’s orders are to focus on healing. Eat well, get your weight back up. Do your best to sleep, really sleep. If you struggle with it, I can get you a prescription.” Felicity stiffened, and Joy nodded as if that was only what she had expected. “Just take your time. Nobody can really tell you how _you_ need to heal from something like this, Felicity. It’s up to you.” Her hand settled lightly on Felicity’s knee, just for a moment. “Just know that it’s not something you have to do alone. You have some good people around you, people who care.”

Felicity turned to look at Lyla, who smiled, and then at the door Oliver and John had left through.

Joy smiled brightly, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “Lean on them where you can. And if you need someone who isn’t them, that’s okay too.”

Inexplicably, _Tommy’s_ face flashed through Felicity’s mind. She blinked it forcefully away.

“Just keep in mind that ultimately, it starts and ends with you,” Joy finished.

Just like that, she turned and began gathering up her supplies, packing them back into the rolling suitcase. Flustered, Felicity licked her lips and turned to look at Lyla, who huffed a little groan as she eased herself precariously off the arm of the couch, one hand in the small of her back as she straightened.

Lyla turned a wry, knowing smile on her. “Not too terrible?”

It really hadn’t been. Despite Felicity’s anxiety, Joy had been the perfect balance of professional, friendly, and careful of Felicity’s boundaries. It had been nothing at all like the feeling of being an insect pinned under Dr. Malik’s cold stare.

“No,” Felicity answered quietly. She turned a small, serious smile to Joy as the doctor stood and pushed her case to the end of the coffee table. “Thank you. You were… what I needed.”

Joy smiled back warmly, eyes crinkling at the corners. “It was an honor, Felicity. Lyla speaks highly of you, and I can see why.” Felicity turned sharply to Lyla in surprise, brows rising at Lyla’s inscrutable smile. Joy recaptured her attention by reaching out to offer her something. “If you need me, you should be able to contact me without waiting on intermediaries. I suspect we both have certain limitations of circumstance based on our… livelihoods. But if I can help and you need it, I’ll be there.”

Felicity’s lips parted softly in real shock. She lifted her hand and accepted a business card from Joy. It was nothing but her name, credentials, and a phone number, but still Felicity was struck dumb by the gesture, unexpectedly deeply touched by this near-stranger’s solidarity. Her mouth worked for a moment as she tucked the card into her hand, the blunted edges pressing lines and points into her palm, but no further words of thanks came out around the lump in her throat.

She looked up at Joy and just smiled, blinking against the sting in her eyes.

Biting her lip, Joy smiled, hesitating. Then, “Okay, I’m just gonna ask. Can I give you a hug?”

Felicity’s eyes widened, and for a moment a visceral surge of _no_ stiffened her spine. But it eased away a moment later as she gulped a deep breath and stood. “I’d—yeah, that’s… please. Thank you.”

Laughing softly, Joy leaned in and took Felicity lightly into her arms. It was brief, a little pat between her shoulder blades and a quick squeeze, but when it was done, she left Felicity with a warmth and comfort she wanted to tuck away and keep.

When she stepped back, Joy lifted her chin high in a way that made Felicity mirror it unconsciously. “You are an incredibly strong, resilient young woman, Felicity. I know the worst is over, but that it doesn’t mean the hard part is. But you?” She shook her head, lips spreading unexpectedly into a grin. “I know women like you.” She turned to give Lyla a mischievous wink, who snorted back, smirking. “Women like us. We’re survivors.”

Felicity laughed a little damply to dissolve the lump rising in her throat again. “That’s—I…” She bit her lips together and inhaled deeply, drawing this moment around her, sewing it together with everything she had persisted and stubborned her way through over this stolen summer. “I couldn’t be in better company.”

“Damn right,” Lyla drawled. “We’re badass.”

Joy laughed and took up the handle of her case again, rolling it towards the door. “We’d better let your knights know we’ve finished up though before they start getting gray hairs.”

Lyla’s eyes rose consideringly. “Hmm, I don’t know. I think Johnny would look delicious in salt-and-pepper.”

Felicity moved with them towards the door, chuckling together.

Palms rubbing down her shorts again, Felicity turned to Lyla and scrunched her face up. “Um. I know we just said how badass we are and all, but…” she winced exaggeratedly, “do you think we could maybe not tell Digg about the pizza thing?”

Lyla barked a laugh and pulled Felicity into a one-armed hug. “Oh, I think I can keep that secret.” Joy opened the front door and passed through, and Lyla moved to follow her, winking at Felicity over her shoulder. “What Johnny doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Felicity’s smile faded as the door swung shut behind her, a leaden lump weighing heavy in her stomach.

She hoped that was true.

—

Thunder rolled, distant and murmuring, and from the high, narrow windows along the warehouse walls light filtered gray and blue through the rain. It bathed the hollow, echoing space in a dim, diffuse glow, softening the edges of deeper shadows that swallowed the corners and nooks behind the DJ booth, behind the bar, up along the catwalks and into the rafters.

Tommy sat on the edge of the small stage and absorbed the quiet, his head tipped back and throat long and exposed. His mouth opened softly and he closed his eyes, drawing in a long, deep breath that tasted of dust and chill. Outside the summer was holding fast to its end, muggy and low with heat, but in here, a cool persisted like the emptiness of a tomb.

He let the breath go like a sigh and opened his eyes again, taking it all in. It was still in its bones a steelworks factory, underneath the cosmetic interiors and angular decorations. Tommy remembered the giddy, electric excitement that had thrummed under his skin the first time he’d strolled with Oliver through the warehouse, Diggle trailing behind as they snarked back and forth and Tommy’s eyes projected his dreams and aspirations onto the concrete canvas. He’d loved the idea of a nightclub, of Verdant, of taking something abandoned and working it with his own hands and vision and rebuilding it into something lively, successful, thriving.

It was a feeling that, after death and rebirth and blood in between, should have felt distant, phantomlike. So far from the man sitting alone on the bare stage that it seemed like fantasy, luridly neon and just as false.

But it didn’t. Tommy still knew the quickening pulse of ambition stirred in him with his hand on the rail of that stair. Could taste his own delighted laughter. His muscles twitched in recall of the high energy of opening night.

It wasn’t far away at all. So close, in fact, he could almost still touch it. Only just out of reach.

He wasn’t sure what that meant.

To his right and down a short hall behind the stairs, a door creaked open, and Tommy stilled, waiting.

The first footsteps tread lightly towards him, and he relaxed.

“I’ve been admiring Thea’s handiwork,” he projected without turning his head. “She didn’t really change a lot, when it comes down to it, but the whole effect is different. It all reads her, not me.”

He turned his head just enough to catch Felicity in his periphery as she stopped by the end of the stair, her palm patting lightly against the rail. The soft soles of her ruby red flats scuffed against the edge of the dance floor, and she looked around the room, brows high and lips rubbing together.

They matched the color of her shoes, he noted.

“I wouldn’t say that,” she returned, shrugging. “I mean, her fingerprints are all over everything, sure. It’s definitely a different feel than Year One.” The corner of his mouth twitched upward at the capital letters in her voice. Year One. Oddly, he kind of liked that. “But she built on what you shaped. It’s all still under there, visible.”

“Hmm,” he hummed, looking at her fully now. “You think so?” She met his eye and nodded, one brow quirked high. He looked around again. “I just figured it was deja vu. Wishful thinking maybe.”

Felicity moved further into the room, crossing half the distance to him as if it were a casual, easy breach. No hesitance or wariness. He didn’t know how she did it.

Her expression was a question, and he answered it, lifting a hand to gesture vaguely before dropping it back into his lap. “You know. Just wanting to believe I made a mark.”

She drew up a foot or so away from him and leaned her hip on the lip of the stage, hands toying with each other as she turned to look across the room again. Her fingernails, he noticed, were a sunshine yellow. “You left a lot of marks.”

There was more under the words than could be shaped into meaning, and Tommy didn’t try. He understood enough. He looked away, sighing.

Felicity was quiet only a moment; he could feel her looking at him, but stared down at the floor until she lifted herself to sit beside him on the stage.

“Roy said I’d find you up here.”

Tommy snorted. “Did he.”

He slid a glance at her and she raised her eyebrows over her glasses. “He also said you almost took his head off.”

Tommy opened his mouth, teeth clicking shut on a grimace. “…‘I didn’t mean to’ sounds pretty lame, all things considered. He sort of surprised me.”

Felicity, unsmiling, tilted her head to one side, considering him. “He said that too. He was very clear that it wasn’t your fault and he shouldn’t have come up behind you while you were beating on the practice dummy.”

An edge grew sharper in her voice the closer the sentence came to its end, and Tommy rolled his lips between his teeth in chagrin. He said nothing.

“Tommy,” her tone was exasperated. “You have a gash in your side. You _have_ to take it easy.”

He let out an explosive, irritable sigh through his nose. “It’s _fine_. I didn’t pull any stitches this time or—” his eyes closed as he caught his mistake. “Shit.”

Felicity’s eyes widened. “ _This_ time? Tommy!”

He nearly leapt off the stage in shock as she grabbed at him, tugging his arm out of the way and pulling at the bottom of his navy T-shirt. “Felic—Felicity, Jesus, it’s _fine_.”

She bent over, eyes for his side only as she pulled the cotton up enough to get a view of his wound. “‘It’s _fine_ ,’” she mocked, and he flinched at the gentle brush of her fingertips over the tear in his flesh. “It is _not_ fine, Tommy, you were stabbed and almost _died_ and you need to let this _heal_!”

He clenched his teeth, holding himself stiffly against a shiver as her fingernail tripped over the new stitches.

“These aren’t Oliver’s sutures.” Her head came up, nostrils flaring in outrage. “You stitched _yourself_ up?”

He jerked away from her, the muscle in his jaw twitching as he tugged his shirt back into place. “I was the only one here. It’s fine.”

She scoffed, glaring, still leaning towards him. “It is _not_ fine, they’re crooked. It’s definitely going to scar.”

“So what?” he snapped, glaring back even as his eyebrows knit in confusion. “I don’t—I don’t understand why it even _matters_ to you, Felicity.” He gestured sarcastically at the big, empty space around them. “We’re alone, you don’t have to put on an act for everybody like I-I don’t deserve this or like you care if I’m hurting or—”

“I _do_ care!” She cut him off indignantly.

“ _Why_!” he barked. “You should hope I’m suffering, that I’m bleeding and in pain, after everything I put you through, that I _did_ to you.” He grabbed his side, squeezing the wound under his shirt and gritting his teeth against the pain. “This is the least of everything I deserve, and you swear there’s no part of this lie we’re telling that’s about protecting me but it _does_ protect me! You should want me to hurt, or at least want me gone.” He searched her face, realizing suddenly how close it was, how much he’d leaned in towards her as he ranted. She sat stiffly, refusing to lean away, chin high, eyes steady on his. He looked into them and tried to find the anger, the loathing he felt for himself. “Why don’t you?”

She just stared at him until he slowly eased back a few inches, ashamed of himself for looming over her. Lightning flashed through the windows, a flashbulb overexposing their shadows against the floor.

Releasing a low breath, Felicity let her eyes shut a moment and gathered herself. When she opened them again, she looked… thoughtful. “I don’t hate you, Tommy.”

He shook his head, bemused, but she stopped him with a touch. His eyes widened, breath caught, as her fingers slid over his wrist, grip loose but firm as she pulled his hand from his side and set it on the stage between them.

She looked down at their hands as she set hers next to his, not touching, but close enough. She raised her gaze to his again, solemn. “You did hurt me. You—you put me through something…” she trailed off, lost for words, eyes rolling to the ceiling as if it could give her answers. Licking her lips, she began again in a whisper. “It was a _nightmare_.”

He swallowed thickly around a lump of shame, and she met his eye again.

“But you were in it with me, Tommy.” His brows twitched in confusion and she dipped her chin, looking up at him over her glasses. “It was your nightmare too.”

His lips parted as if coming unglued, his mouth inexplicably dry. “That’s not…”

Felicity dropped her gaze to their hands, nearly touching, again. “I watched you come apart.” Feeling horrifically exposed, he stared just over her shoulder as she went on, “Do you remember the night you woke me up screaming?”

Tommy remembered. It had been the first real break in the dam, a raw reliving of Talia’s early work on him.

She looked into his face even as he couldn’t bring himself to meet her gaze. “What I heard, the way you screamed… I can’t—” she bit her lip, “I can only imagine that was a fraction of what you went through.”

He realized suddenly that he wasn’t breathing, and inhaled a narrow, whistling breath.

Her hand covered his again. “I do hold you responsible for the part you played in this, Tommy. I think… I think you have a lot of work to do, to come back from that. I can’t pretend I’m not angry, that I’m not going to _be_ angry at you, on some level, for I don’t know how long.” She squeezed his hand to make him look at her. “But I can’t help feeling a little like, the things that happened to _you_? If I wanted you punished, I think you’ve already been hurt enough.”

He stared at her, brow pinched, blindsided. They had been back in Starling for less than a week. Less than a _week_ home, clear of the prison they’d left burning behind them, and Felicity may not be forgiving him, precisely, but the understanding and empathy she offered even still was just… beyond comprehension.

She was so much stronger than him. She always had been, he thought, and that strength was why when her will went up against Talia’s construct of him, it had been Tommy that had broken.

Hesitantly, she took her hand from his and laid it gently over the wound in his side. “So stop trying to _make_ it hurt. Okay?” He sighed, and she tipped her head to the side again, searching his face seriously. “I told this lie to protect _me_ , Tommy. But if it’s protecting you, too… I can live with that.”

When he couldn’t make himself say anything in response, she took her hand from his side and slid down from the lip of the stage. With only a glance over her shoulder, she headed back the way she came.

He stared after her long after the door had closed, turning over everything she had said as the rain drummed down and the thunder rolled.

She could live with it, she said.

Tommy wasn’t so sure if _he_ could.

—

The knock on the apartment door was a sharp, impatient rap, forceful and gruff.

A flutter of inexplicable, years-old nervousness in his stomach, Oliver licked his lips and turned the knob, opening the door wide and standing in its frame. “Hi. Thanks for coming.”

Quentin Lance stood on the other side of the threshold, one eyebrow in that perpetual sarcastic arch and wearing that junkyard bulldog scowl that used to terrify teenage Ollie. Quentin was dressed in slacks, leather boots, and a plain slate-gray button up under a muted navy blazer that did little to disguise his shoulder rig. His badge sat prominently on his brown leather belt, and he looked much more the detective he’d so prided himself on than the captain he seemed not to have quite settled into yet.

“You do realize I’m not your personal police captain, right, Queen?” Quentin scoffed, but the bite in his words was less acid than habit. “I don’t really do house calls.”

Oliver pressed his lips together, fingers rubbing together at his side as he shuffled his weight and chose his words. “I do realize that. Thank you for coming out, anyways. It’s, ah—” he glanced over his shoulder into the apartment and sighed. Returning his attention to the police captain, he finished, “It’s important. Please, come in.”

He stepped back, gesturing for Quentin to follow.

Rubbing at the back of his recently-buzzed hair, Quentin sighed but crossed through the door. “If this is about the investigation into Ms. Smoak’s disappearance, I can’t say I’ve got good news for you, kid.”

“That’s okay,” Oliver hurried to say, softly closing the door and turning to face into the room, hands shoving into the back pockets of his jeans. Quentin stopped by the armchair, hands in his own pockets as he turned to keep Oliver in sight. “I do.”

Quentin’s eyes narrowed, lips pursing to form a question, but Oliver intervened with a clearing of his throat and turned expectantly towards the partitioned bedroom area.

Hesitantly, Felicity entered the living room, hands twisted together at her waist and lower lip between her teeth as she glanced from Oliver to Quentin, ballet flats scuffing the carpet uncertainly.

Quentin stared. His mouth fell open and his eyes blew wide, his hands emerging slowly from his pockets. “Wha…”

Nervously, Felicity gave him a little wave. “Hi.”

“I’ll be god damned,” Quentin muttered. Then, “I’ll be _god_ damned.”

He lurched forward then, and Oliver had to hold himself back at Felicity’s little flinch, but Quentin didn’t so much as pause. He strode right up to her and clamped his large hands down on her shoulders as he looked her up and down. “Holy shit, kiddo. You’re alright.”

Lips parting, eyes shining behind the lenses of her glasses, Felicity looked up at him and smiled weakly.

Quentin’s own lips twitched in response, and he crushed her into a tight hug, his wiry frame folding her in like a protective cage, one hand coming up to cradle the back of her head. “You’re alright.”

Felicity very carefully wrapped her arms around Quentin’s waist, and Oliver’s lips parted in surprise as Quentin gave a little laugh and rocked with her from one foot to the other. A lump formed in Oliver’s throat, and he couldn’t help smiling at the sight. It was hard not to adore Felicity. He wasn’t really surprised that Quentin Lance was no more immune to that than anyone else.

Quentin had truly done all he could to keep the search for Felicity open and active over the summer, long after the trail had gone cold. And though it hadn’t helped to bring Felicity home, it had helped Oliver to know that she wasn’t being dismissed and forgotten, given up on. It had helped him keep _hoping_. He would always be grateful for that.

Finally, Quentin released Felicity to arm’s length to take her in again, a genuine smile lighting up his craggy face and a damp sheen in his eyes. “Jesus, Smoak. You have any idea how worried sick we’ve all been over you?” He squeezed her shoulders gently, nodding firmly. “This is better news than I could’ve hoped for, coming over here.”

He glanced over at Oliver, and for a moment they locked eyes and shared an understanding that bridged across all their bad blood and ugly history.

Quentin broke the look with a sigh, letting his hands fall from Felicity’s shoulders with one more reassuring pat. “Can’t believe what I’m looking at.” Felicity’s smile trembled, and that was all it took to sharpen Quentin’s gaze with concern. He ducked his head to catch her eye as her chin dipped. “ _Are_ you alright, Felicity? Where the hell have you been?”

Felicity drew a deep breath and rolled her eyes up to the ceiling for a moment, the lights glinting in the tears on her lashes. “That’s… a long story, Detective Lance.”

He didn’t correct her on his rank, brows knitting as he shot a now-guarded look at Oliver. “Do you wanna come tell it down at the station? Or we can go grab a coffee. Me and you.”

Oliver frowned ominously for a moment, taking a step forward. But before his protective displeasure could truly form, the cagey look on Lance’s face shot a bolt of understanding through the gathering storm clouds in Oliver’s head and his eyebrows shot up.

Quentin was offering Felicity the opportunity to talk to him alone, in case there were things she didn’t want Oliver to know.

Felicity, for her part, looked alarmed at the thought of going to the police station. “No! No, I—I want to talk here.” She took Quentin’s hands imploringly. “Please.”

Quentin frowned down at her in concern. “Are you sure?” There was a strangely circumspect tightness around his eyes as he tipped his head subtly in Oliver’s direction. His tone was carefully neutral as he asked, “You’re okay with Queen here hearing whatever it is you been caught up in?”

Felicity’s eyes narrowed up at him before widening in clarity. “Oh. Oh! No, it’s fine. Oliver’s, uh,” she turned a painfully transparent wince on Oliver, and it was all he could do not to shake his head at her in chagrin. “He’s, um, _in the know_.”

“Really,” Quentin drawled, deadpan. The look he turned on Oliver was oddly as piercing as it was opaque. Irony fairly dripped from his words when he asked, “He’s in on your big green secret, huh?”

Oliver’s eyes widened as Felicity raised her eyebrows at him pointedly. “Yes…” he drawled slowly, switching his attention to Quentin. “I'm aware. About the Arrow.”

Hands bracketing his hips, Quentin gave a deflating little huff of a sigh, expression thoroughly unimpressed. He shook his head, muttering, “I’m not so sure you’re any better at keeping secrets than she is. God help us all.”

Oliver drew himself up with a deep breath, chin rising and mouth quirking with a defensive, tight-lipped smirk. “I assure you, my discretion can be counted on. Especially where Felicity’s safety depends on it.”

Quentin looked no more reassured but sighed, the corners of his mouth pressing down in a sardonic shrug. “Well, let’s get to it then.”

Felicity gestured Quentin into the armchair and sat in the corner of the couch nearest him, her hands clasped together on her knees. She looked up at Oliver, eyes rounded behind her glasses. The lost, panicked expression shot through him as if fired from his own bow, and he covered the distance between them in three brisk strides, settling on the couch beside her and mirroring her posture.

The sleeve of his burgundy sweater brushed the arm of her baby-pink cardigan and, for just a moment, she leaned against him. It was just a moment of warmth and the lightest press before she leaned forward to meet Quentin’s eye, but Oliver’s fingers twitched against his right thigh and he had to resist the impulse to wrap his arm around her shoulders.

“Alright,” Quentin began, gruff but calm as he propped his elbows on the arms of the chair, “you wanna tell me where you’ve been all summer?”

“I…” Felicity trailed off, eyes flicking upwards as she visibly tried to order her thoughts into an explanation. Inhaling deeply, she bit her lip and quickly released it. “My, uh, absence was… involuntary.”

Quentin’s brows pulled together, his gaze sharpening as he frowned. “Meaning?”

Felicity swallowed hard, the pad of one thumb rubbing over and over across the smooth teal polish on the other thumbnail. Her mouth opened, hung there, and clicked shut. Quentin cast a worried glance at Oliver, but his own attention was focused on Felicity’s profile.

Her lips trembled. Her breath shook. Oliver clenched his hands into fists to keep from reaching to comfort her.

“Sorry,” Felicity blurted at last. “This is hard for me.”

The constant vague hostility in Quentin’s face faded a little more, real concern shining through as he shifted forward in his seat. “Easy. You take your time, alright?”

Felicity nodded, but her voice was an insistent punch when she answered, “No, I—I need to get this out. I’ve just, I’ve had to say it already so it should be easy, shouldn’t it?” She frowned down at her hands like they’d offended her. “I can do this, because I need to. It’s just difficult, but—”

She cut herself off with a shake of the head, eyes briefly closing. She sat there for a moment, head bowed and eyes closed, and took a long, deep breath, shoulders rising and then falling as she let it go. Her chin rose, brows serious slashes over the rims of her glasses as she opened her eyes, spine straightening.

All over again, Oliver found himself in awe of her strength.

“I was abducted,” Felicity started, steady and blunt, eyes level on Quentin’s. “In June.”

Quentin stiffened. Sourness washed into the back of Oliver’s mouth.

Felicity continued. “A faction of the League of Assassins ordered me taken off the board to make things more difficult in Starling City, and for—” she fumbled, carried on, “for other reasons. I was held captive by agents of this faction until five days ago. I was escaping already, but the Arrow—”

“Hang on,” Quentin barked, eyes round and bushy brows peaked in arches of anger and disbelief. “The League of Assassins? The people Sara—” he glanced quickly at Oliver, but went on, “the ones Sara was running from?”

Felicity stared at him a moment, caught off guard. “Yes. But not—I don’t think she was ever affiliated with this—this faction.”

“You don’t think?” Quentin asked sharply. “Sara left with that girlfriend of hers and a whole _faction_ of killers weeks before you disappeared. You never saw her? Anything?”

“Sara wasn’t involved,” Oliver tried to cut in smoothly.

Quentin cut him a withering glare. “Was I asking you? And how would you know, huh?”

Oliver absorbed his hostility calmly; he would never not deserve Quentin Lance’s suspicion and mistrust when it came to his daughters, and he had long accepted that as fact. But Felicity didn’t deserve to be caught in the backdraft of Oliver’s mistakes, and especially not now. “Laurel said Sara made contact with her a couple weeks ago and she didn’t know anything about Felicity being taken. She said Sara was supposed to be coming home.”

Quentin stiffened, staring at him. “Did she,” he said flatly. His lips thinned, chest expanding as he took a deep breath. “I’ll just ask her about that and she can explain to me why I’m hearing about all this for the first time from _you_ , weeks after the fact.”

Oliver only barely suppressed a wince and sent a mental apology Laurel’s way for the metric ton of parental outrage that was sure to be barreling down on her after Quentin left them.

“I’m—I’m sorry…” Felicity stuttered quietly, and Oliver and Quentin both turned to her in surprise, having nearly forgotten her in the hot flash of conflict. She had pulled into herself, shoulders curving inward and fingers tucked between her knees. Tears stood on her lashes and her nostrils flared with quick, short breaths.

Quentin’s face creased in a chagrined wince. “Ah, shit.” He shuffled forward in his seat again and reached out a broad hand to grip Felicity’s knee, squeezing gently in apology. “No, honey, I’m the one who oughta apologize. You don’t need this shit, not from me, and not right now.”

Oliver's chest warmed in respect for the older man and he surrendered to the temptation to set his hand on Felicity’s back, hoping to be a reassuring warmth to offer his strength to lean on.

Quentin patted Felicity’s knee again and offered her a tight, apologetic smile. “I’ll try not to interrupt again. You wanna tell me the rest?”

Felicity’s lips flickered in a smile just as tight and even smaller, but she took a deep breath and nodded. “I escaped. It was—it was bad. I was escaping, but I don’t know if I would’ve really made it _out_ if the Arrow hadn’t found me at the same time and wasn’t already there.” She leaned just slightly back into Oliver’s palm. “I—it was…” she worried her bottom lip between her teeth, gathering her words. Her voice shook a little when she went on. “It was a nightmare. I know I should’ve contacted you sooner, but I just—I’m _home,_ I’m finally home and I just—I just wanted to…”

“Hey, hey,” Quentin took over gently, ducking his head to meet Felicity’s eye. “Don’t you worry about that. You’re home, that’s the most important thing.” Storm clouds gathered in his expression slowly. “When these people took you…”

Felicity caught on where he was headed and shook her head sharply. “They didn’t hurt me.” Oliver wasn’t quite sure he would agree, but Felicity continued, voice darkening with a static of bitterness. “They just stole three months of my life.”

“Can you tell me why?” Quentin asked shrewdly, leaning forward. “Did they want you to do something for them, or…?”

“I don’t know,” Felicity wrapped her arms across her stomach, shoulders curving. “I just—they were—I-I don’t know. There were… hints, some kind of purpose, a long game I guess. They knew…” her head tipped back, eyes rolling upwards and shining wetly as her voice went tight and low, cracking as she confessed, “ _everything_ about me.”

Oliver’s jaw clenched at this detail, razors dancing across his nerves stretched wire-tight.

Felicity went on, “They planned it in advance. For me. And I just—after three months and-and everything, I just still don’t know _why_.”

Quentin’s brows lowered over his eyes like dark thunderheads, his expression forbidding as he sat back in his chair. He rubbed one hand over his grizzled jaw, sighing between his fingers before asking, “They gonna come after you?”

Felicity stared at him, and Oliver’s heartbeat kicked up a notch, two. For a moment, his vision fuzzed away and he was standing in the dark in Felicity’s empty apartment, lost and paralyzed; he was in the foundry, watching Tommy from halfway across the room, watching the viciously wary hunch in his spine, the twitch of fingers that he’d never known to be so powerful... something about his mouth utterly unfamiliar, a hard, waiting cruelty to the line of his lips, a breath away from snarling.

Oliver blinked, his head jerking minutely to rid his ears of a faint ringing.

Exhaling unsteadily, Felicity’s answer was small and quiet and grim. “I don’t know.”

Head shaking fiercely, Quentin scowled. “Kid, you gotta put some distance between you and the Arrow.”

Oliver’s lips parted in surprise.

Felicity stared at Quentin blankly, caught off guard. “What? _No_.”

Tossing his hands demonstrably, Quentin scoffed. “He’s the reason you’re caught up in this, Felicity. The reason these people _stole_ your summer, and wanted to do _god_ knows what with you. I told you last summer and I‘m telling you again, you’re better getting clear of this guy and his shit. It ain’t good for you.”

Felicity’s spine straightened and she sat tall as she could, fists shaking now against her thighs. “ _I’m_ the reason they took me. Me. Because of my choices and the threat _I_ pose. I’m not _bait_ ,” she spat. Oliver suppressed a flinch. “I’m not some damsel or sidekick or _leverage_ for the Arrow or anybody else.” She tapped one flat palm against her chest and raised her eyebrows high in challenge. “Me. Because of _me_. I make my own choices and my own enemies, Detective Lance, and I am not letting _anyone_ scare me out of any of that.”

Quentin snorted, scowling all the harder. “You’re bullheaded stubborn is what you are and it’s gonna get you killed.” His gaze cut to Oliver, pinning him with a glare. “You can’t seriously let her run right back into the firefight, Queen. She was _taken_. God knows they might mean to finish the job, you want that on your conscience?”

Felicity’s jaw was slack in outrage, and through a flutter of unprepared panic in his stomach, Oliver sat up and shook his head at Quentin. “What I want is irrelevant. It’s Felicity’s life,” he looked at her and she met his eye, no doubt her own words echoing between them as they passed his lips. “It’s her choice.”

Felicity’s face softened for just a moment, and Oliver helplessly offered her a small smile.

“Idiots gonna get yourselves killed,” Quentin groused.

Oliver returned his attention to the captain with a drawn breath. “Not if I can help it. Just because I’m not forbidding Felicity from running into danger doesn’t mean I’m willing to lose her again easily. She’s staying here,” he said with finality, “with me. I’m not letting her out of my sight.”

Under his hand, Felicity stiffened again, and Oliver instantly knew he’d said the wrong thing. She shrugged her shoulders slightly, and Oliver slid his hand from her back, clasping it with his other in his lap with a grimace.

Quentin eyed him appraisingly. “Here’s hoping that’s enough.”

“If you two are done circling the wagons,” Felicity said in a tight, clipped voice, “can we get back on topic?”

Quentin exhaled through his nose, mouth a flat line. “Well, you’ve made it clear you’re in charge here. Typically, I’d have to insist on an official statement about your kidnapping, launch a formal investigation, push for a protection detail.” He eyed her darkening scowl almost wearily. “But nothin’ about this is exactly typical, is it.”

“I can’t exactly go on record saying I was abducted by a mysterious cabal of assassins due to my vigilante activities assisting the Arrow,” Felicity scoffed.

Quentin tipped his head to one side in rueful agreement, snorting. “Trouble is, kid, your pal here reported you missing.” Oliver tensed up as Felicity cut him an unreadable look, but Quentin went on. “One way or another, that’s gotta be resolved. You can’t just reappear like nothin’ happened. Hell, half my guys had me breathing down their necks about your case often enough, they spot you on the street they’re gonna recognize you and try to bring you in if we don’t wrap up this loose thread.”

Oliver’s fists clenched so suddenly against his thighs the muscles almost felt cramped. “That would be… not good.”

Without looking at him, Felicity set her hand down on his knee, and Oliver exhaled slowly, easing his fingers out flat as he did.

“What’s the easiest way to make this go away?” Felicity asked bluntly.

Sighing, Quentin shook his head slightly, but his eyebrows shrugged as if he were giving up. “If you’re sure that’s what you wanna do, the quickest way to get this sewn up is to come in and make a statement that the report was filed in error.” He leveled her with a serious look. “You were never missing. You make up a story about why you were gone, why you didn’t tell anybody you were leaving, why you left your phone and all your belongings and just took off, leaving no financial trail and not resurfacing for almost four months. You may have to back it up with some kind of paper trail, but it probably shouldn’t need to go too deep, not if your story makes enough sense.”

Felicity nodded, pulling her hand from Oliver’s knee to tap at her chin thoughtfully. “I think I can manage that. I might need a day or two.”

Clicking his tongue, Quentin leaned heavily on his knees. “Felicity. Listen. Whatever you come up with, you’re gonna have to sell the same story to your landlord, your job if you had one, anybody else who might’ve needed to know where you were all summer, understand? And dropping off the face of the earth like that, no matter what tale you spin, you realize it’s probably not gonna leave you exactly smelling like a rose?”

She didn’t change her posture, and yet Oliver watched Felicity compact and harden somehow beside him. Chin jutting forward, mouth grim, she answered the captain softly. “I’ve been through hell in the last few months, and I’m not even sure it’s over. I can handle being embarrassed, and people making stupid assumptions.”

Searching her face for a moment, Quentin nodded with a sort of sad acceptance. “I just want to make sure you’re prepared for what may be ahead.”

A tight, humorless smile sharpened Felicity’s expression, and she hummed softly. “Don’t worry, Detective. This isn’t my first time starting over.”

Eyes narrowing very slightly in a curiosity Oliver couldn’t help sharing, Quentin just nodded and rose to his feet with a deep breath.

Oliver and Felicity stood as well, and Oliver pushed his sleeves up his forearms absently as Felicity offered Quentin a hand to shake.

“Thank you for coming, Detective Lance. And for helping me. Again.”

Quentin glanced at her hand and ignored it with a snort, opening his arms and drawing Felicity into another hug. He smoothed a fatherly hand down her hair, tucking her head briefly beneath his chin. “I’m just glad to see you again, kiddo.” He met Oliver’s eyes over Felicity’s head, and there was a push, a charge of responsibility in his gaze. “Safe and sound.”

Oliver nodded solemnly, and hoped quietly that Felicity would forgive him.

Felicity stepped back from Quentin’s embrace with a soft smile, and she walked with him to the front door, a hand on his back. “I’ll let you know as soon as I hear from Sara?”

One hand on the knob, Quentin turned to her with a profound and grateful relief tucked in the crowsfeet bracketing his eyes. “I’d appreciate that. It’d do this crap ticker of mine some good to know she’s not tangled up on the wrong side of all this.”

Felicity glanced at his chest with a concerned frown, tapping the front of his shirt with her fingers before meeting his eyes again. “Are you really okay to be on the streets again, Detective? You were barely out of the hospital before I was gone…”

Chuckling, Quentin trapped her hand against his chest just for a moment, eyes twinkling down at her. “Actually, it’s Captain now. Don’t you worry. They stuck me behind a desk on the mistaken assumption paperwork was less likely to give me a heart attack.”

Felicity huffed in teasing dissatisfaction, but it melted with a caught breath as Quentin squeezed her shoulder and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. When he straightened, smiling warmly down on her, there was a soft flush pinkening Felicity’s cheeks and her eyes shone damply.

“Besides,” he chided gently, “it’s high time you started calling me Quentin.”

“Okay,” Felicity agreed, startlingly shyly. It made something unexpected and sparkling dance in Oliver’s chest to see that surprised sweetness in her face. “Quentin, then.”

Quentin chucked her one last time under the chin. “You take care of yourself. And don’t be a stranger.”

Felicity smiled and nodded as Quentin pulled the door open.

One foot crossing the threshold, he turned back to look at Oliver.

They stood for a beat, just holding the other’s eye. Miles and miles of bad road and rocky history crossed the few yards between them. In the end, words didn’t. Too much time and change and shifting understanding had passed, and if they had clashed again and again, one thing they agreed on stood right in the room with them.

Quentin conceded no more than a gruff nod to Oliver, and Oliver returned it somberly.

The door closed with a soft click.

Oliver crossed to the door as Felicity scoffed quietly. He glanced at her in question as he bolted the locks, one eyebrow raising.

There was a bitter purse to her mouth a she turned and walked away towards the kitchenette. “Men,” she muttered.

“What?” Oliver asked in confusion, trailing after her.

She retrieved a small bottled fruit juice from the fridge, eyeing him in irritation. “Just that all of you transform into growly cavemen circling your damsels.”

“Huh?” Oliver’s face scrunched, baffled. “I—what? I don’t do that.”

Felicity rolled her eyes, twisting at the cap on her drink. “You were doing _exactly_ that, just now. Both of you were.” She took her hand off the stubborn drink cap to gesture dramatically. “‘Oh, Felicity, don’t worry your pretty little head, I won’t let you out of my sight!’”

Oliver pressed his lips together and braced his hands on the bar edge, blowing air through his nose in frustration. “It wasn’t like that. I was backing you up. I _told_ him I wasn’t going to make you quit helping the Arrow!”

She pulled her head back in offense. “Oh, how generous of you to _let_ me keep doing my job!”

“Felicity, you know I didn’t mean it like that,” he snapped irritably. “It’s always been your choice, since the beginning. All I said to him was that I would have your back, keep you safe.”

“No,” she pointed a finger at him, then curled her hand back around her drink cap, tugging. “What you _said_ was that you wouldn’t let me out of your sight. That I’m staying right here where you can watch my every move, just like—”

“Of course you’re staying here!” he interrupted. “It isn’t safe for you to go home. I thought we settled this.”

“No, if you’ll remember, I said this was for right _now_ , Oliver!” She jerked at her drink top like she wanted to behead it. It didn’t budge, but she glared at him. “You’re acting like this is settled _forever_ , but I’m going home eventually. Soon.”

Rubbing his palms back and forth over the counter edge as a hush of rainfall began outside, Oliver clenched his jaw around the flare of panic her words raised and answered tersely, “Sure. Eventually. After Digg and I are sure it’s safe.”

“Oh!” she mocked, viciously twisting at the juice top again. “Well, I suppose when you two give me _permission_.”

She hissed and glanced at the rubbed-raw palm of her hand, and Oliver growled in the back of his throat, rolling his eyes. “Felicity, come on. We’re not trying to control you, we’re trying to keep you safe.”

She slammed her juice bottle onto the countertop, shooting him a heated look as she snatched the damp rag from the sink. Wrapping that around the cap, she tried twisting again. “No, Oliver, you’re trying to control me _so_ you can keep me safe, and I told you I can only play along with that for so long. I’ve had _enough_ of—damn it!”

She tossed the rag back into the sink, surrendering, juice bottle still unopened.

Sighing, Oliver raised his brows at her and held his hand out patiently. She scowled. He waited.

Finally, she pushed the juice towards him, and he broke the plastic seal with a quick, crisp snap. He handed it back to her across the counter, and she glared at it as if it had betrayed her.

Suddenly, she set the drink down and stalked around the counter, passing behind Oliver as his brows furrowed in confusion. “Where are you going?”

“Outside.”

“It’s pouring rain,” he reasoned, turning to keep her in sight as she began throwing back the locks.

“That’s the point!” she shot back bafflingly, dropping the last chain.

“Felicity,” he pleaded, exasperated. “We were having a conversation.” She ignored him, yanking open the door, and he stepped away from the counter with his hands out. “We still have to figure out this story you’re going to tell the police!”

“Don’t worry,” she sing-songed sarcastically. “We will. _Eventually_.”

The door shut firmly behind her, and Oliver stalked three steps across the room before that same flare of panic had finished burning up his spine to his brain. He jerked to a halt with a hiss, his outstretched hand curling into a fist inches from the doorknob.

She wouldn’t want him to follow her. She was just outside.

Just on the other side of the door.

_She’s not gone. She’s not gone. She’s not—_

He startled with a gasp and a curse when his back pocket erupted in vibration. Scowling, he dug his phone out of his pocket, glancing at the door one more time before focusing on the screen. Sighing, he thumbed the answer. “Digg.”

“How’d it go? Lance still there?”

Bowing his head, Oliver pinched the bridge of his nose. “He left a few minutes ago. It went…” he floundered for words a moment, rubbed at the corner of his eye with his thumb. “It went.”

Diggle’s chuckle was especially dry over the phone connection. “That well, huh? He’s not arresting either of you again, is he?”

Oliver snorted. “No, that’s not—no. He’s on our side with this one. Or, on Felicity’s side anyways.” Digg hummed knowingly. “He’s never gonna be my biggest fan, but he was glad to see Felicity home, and safe. He thinks I know the Arrow secret now, so he sat and talked about what we need to do next so Felicity can get back to her life.”

“That sounds like it went about as well as it could have,” Diggle said slowly. “So why do you still sound like you want to be punching people?”

Oliver sighed again, long and deflating. “Felicity’s not very happy with me right now.”

There was a thoughtful pause before Diggle spoke again. “You know she’s been through a lot of shit, Oliver. She’s probably not gonna be… easy about everything, not for a while.” Oliver frowned sourly, and as if Digg could see him, Digg went on, “Man, just think of when you first got back. You weren’t exactly a peach. Hell, you still aren’t, but honestly I think that’s just your winning personality.”

Oliver scoffed lightly, letting his lips curl in amusement since John wasn’t there to see him.

“She’ll adjust,” Digg assured. “We’ve gotta be patient there.”

“I know,” Oliver said quietly. “I do. I just—she won’t talk to me. Not really. And she’s just, the way she’s…” He turned and looked at the door again, his heartbeat feeling heavy, each knock against his chest a thud of fear, uncertainty, paranoia… “There’s something else. Something else that she’s not telling us.”

There was a long, waiting quiet until, finally, Digg sighed. “I was wondering if you were letting yourself pick up on that.”

Oliver clenched his jaw and said nothing.

“It’s both of them, Oliver. You know that, don’t you?” Diggle was reluctant, apologetic, but firm. “They’re hiding something. Lying. I don’t know. Every time Felicity and Tommy are in a room together, there’s just something—”

“Diggle,” Oliver interrupted tersely.

“Oliver,” he returned, voice flattened by a patience running thin. “I’m not accusing anybody of anything. Could be whatever happened is… private. Something they don’t want to share with us.”

Oliver’s fingers creaked around the phone, his nostrils flaring as something twisted in his gut, a hot, wiry curl of something he couldn’t define.

“But I don’t think that’s it,” Digg went on quietly. “Whatever secret they’re keeping, whatever reason they have for keeping it…” he sighed unhappily. “Just the way the room feels when they’re together, man. You have to have seen the way he looks at her. There’s something dangerous there.”

Bitterness washed through Oliver’s mouth as he leaned half against the door, fingers slotting between the blinds covering the window beside it. “They’re home now, Digg. Whatever it is… we just have to keep them safe.”

He opened a gap between two slats and peered through as Digg grumbled inaudibly over the line.

It was close to sunset, the world painted in muted shades of orange and green through the gray gauze of the clouds, silver-shot by rain that fell in straight lines. Felicity stood halfway down the staircase beyond his front door, her back to him.

She just stood there as the rain soaked her through, pressing the fabric of her sweater to her skin, darkening her hair and tightening the curls. She gripped the rails to either side in both hands, and as he watched, she tipped her head back so her hair hung down her back. He shifted his weight to the side and caught her profile. Glasses removed, eyes closed, she looked…

Something clenched in Oliver’s chest, and he let the slats of the blinds fall closed, slicing his view of Felicity into thin, obscured ribbons blurred by the rain.

“Oliver…” Digg said finally, heavily. “We don’t even know what we’re supposed to protect them from.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Oliver insisted in a whisper. Cutting across Diggle’s drawn breath, he repeated, “It doesn’t matter.”

“I hope you’re right,” John sighed, but Oliver could hear the hollowness of it, how John didn’t believe it.

Even as he stared through the blinds at Felicity’s fingers curled around the iron rail of the stair, the cold from the window glass caressing his cheek, Oliver wasn’t sure he did either.

—

“So it’s possible.” Laurel was speaking with forced, earnest brightness and a stiff smile that fell short of her eyes, but Tommy was only half paying attention. “It’s gonna be a little more work than I imagined, but it’s possible, if you want it.”

Tommy was slumped in Felicity’s computer chair, one elbow on the cushioned arm and his jaw resting on his knuckles. The cement floor was cold under his bare toes as he swiveled the chair slowly from side to side, his focus lost somewhere to the middle distance as he glared sullenly across the room.

In the undefined layer between his unfocused eyes and the far side of the foundry, ghosts crowded around the gleaming medical table, sharp, hungry lines bent at vicious angles he could feel squirming cutting fingers into his gut.

“Tommy.”

Laurel’s hand extended in his peripheral vision, but she caught herself before touching him when flinched reflexively. The threadbare patience in her voice snagged on his raw nerves and his lips twitched over his teeth.

Her breath caught, and finally he looked at her, perched on the very edge of the desk like she was poised to fly away. Her smile was gone, her skin strained over the bones of her face under the tension of her neutrally concerned expression. “You do want this, right?” She gestured vaguely towards the door, her eyes puzzling over him as he stayed in his slump, unmoved. “The whole world still thinks you're dead. And I know it would be… a lot… but you’re home now.”

She shrugged, an awkward jerk of angles under her plum-colored blouse, and summoned that smile again. It reminded him of a butterfly pressed under glass; lifeless and flattened, something beautiful made ghastly.

“Oliver and Sara have made legal resurrection something of a tradition,” she joked weakly.

Scoffing low in his throat, Tommy unfurled his fingers to scrub over the rough stubble thickening to beard on his chin. “So tempting,” he snarked. “No doubt Starling City would be absolutely _delighted_ to raise a Merlyn from the dead.”

He would see no celebrated homecoming, be no miraculous gift. Just a monstrous, animated corpse in a fine suit, strolling into town over his father’s mass grave. The bodies his own work had dropped would fit right in. What was a little more blood on the family name?

Laurel pressed her lips together, nostrils flaring as she visibly held back her first, second, and third response. His hands curled white-knuckled around the arms of the chair, Tommy stared, waiting, almost wishing she’d snap at him, push back, lash out with that Laurel Lance fire.

Disappointing him, she only exhaled carefully and stood straight, smoothing one hand over the hip of her gray slacks. “I’ll let you think about it for a while. There’s no hurry.”

She waited, perhaps for an apology, perhaps for him to reach out, to take her hand and ask her to stay. He tipped his head against the chair and just looked at her.

Her jaw tightened and she shook her head shortly, a long curl falling over her shoulder to spiral down her shirtfront. “I should go.”

He said nothing, clenching his teeth so tight his molars ached. Restless impatience bubbled under his skin and he wanted her to just _go_. Leave, before his lips skinned back from his teeth and she saw something she wouldn’t like.

Something real.

“Okay,” she muttered as she turned away, and the bitterness of it scalded companionably across the back of his neck, an almost welcome burn.

It cozied in under his skin to simmer with the resentment and twitching, stalking rage building there.

Sighing, Laurel made for the door and Tommy executed a slow, full turn in the chair.

Behind him, the warning beep of the security lock’s release shrilled into the air and Laurel’s heels faltered on the concrete. Tommy let the chair spin back around, the soles of his feet a dragging rasp against the cold, rough floor as the door clanked open, his heart a stampeding thunder beneath his sternum.

Oliver and Felicity filed in through the door on a damp breeze, exchanging surprised glances and awkward hellos with Laurel. They congregated together just across the threshold, and Tommy scraped his bottom lip through his teeth, facing at an angle to them.

Felicity shook out a polka-dotted umbrella, water droplets spotting the legs of her jeans and darkening a spray pattern across the cement floor.

“Oh, is it raining again?” Laurel asked distractedly as Felicity passed Oliver the umbrella.

He propped it against the wall by the door. “Just started. You gonna wait it out?”

“No, thanks. I was just leaving,” Laurel explained quietly, voice a hush not quite soft enough to elude him. “Just—good luck, I guess.”

“What do you mean?” Felicity asked, her words slow with suspicion.

Oliver was all murmured concern. “Is everything okay?”

Tommy almost laughed, his breath a hissing huff between his lips.

Laurel paused ominously, and he felt their eyes flicker over him and refused to look.

“He’s… in a mood,” Laurel all but whispered, tension and frustration raising her volume more than she likely intended.

Turning the chair to face them, Tommy tucked his chin and raised his brows. “You guys do realize I can hear you.”

The faces that turned to him were studies in concern, strain, and uncertainty.

And subtle, hidden fear; fear in as many shades as a nightmare might paint.

Laurel drew a measured breath, and Oliver met her eyes, exchanging some silent communication. “I’m going to go,” she said flatly.

She took a half step to the door but paused, eyes on Tommy as if she might say something more. In the end, she just shook her head and turned away. She slipped out the door into the soft, gray hush of rainfall, Oliver’s eyes following her in concern.

Felicity, however, hadn’t taken her eyes off of him.

Tommy’s hands tightened on the arms of the chair and he met her gaze directly, some conflicting message burning behind his eyes and trying to reach her. To snarl and demand. To beg. To plead. To grovel. To rage.

She took a slow step in his direction, brow furrowing and pink-painted mouth pulling into a frown, and Oliver’s attention latched onto her instantly as she crossed the distance towards Tommy.

“Tommy,” Oliver called, worried as he looked at him slouched in Felicity’s chair. He set a large duffel he’d been carrying onto the med bench and drifted in Felicity’s wake. “Everything okay?”

Felicity’s flats scuffed to a halt just in front of the chair and Tommy was on his feet before the instinct translated fully to deliberate action. She startled, but he strode the short distance to her, hands outstretched.

A rising heat bubbled just beneath his skin, and he almost wondered if Felicity felt it too as he gripped her shoulders by the way she flinched. Jaw set grimly, a muscle twitching in his cheek, he pulled her roughly in against him, folding over her in a hug she stood inside like a statue.

“Tommy?” She asked, so small, so wary. Her hands pressed against his chest, not pushing away. Almost testing for solidity.

He tightened his arms around her, leaning into her as if he could make her understand what he needed by osmosis. Her loose hair tickled against his cheek, catching against his beard; his chest was a furious blaze, his breath shaking with the banked power of it as he set his lips by her ear.

“Felicity.” It came out ragged. Desperate, deep, and harboring a dangerous undercurrent of darkness. He pulled the words up out of his gut, one at a time, firm and deliberate. “It has been a week.”

Her response was immediate. She went rigid, her hands curling to tight fists against his shirt.

“Felicity.” It was a warning. A plea. His palms pressed against her spine. “You said a week. You promised—”

She pushed at him, and he looked down into her face, her eyes wide and lips thinned to bloodless. Minutely, she shook her head.

 _No. Not yet,_ her eyes begged.

_Screamed._

It was as if she had suckerpunched him. He staggered back as she extricated herself from his arms, her face flushed and eyes panic-wide. The floor seemed to drop away, and Tommy stared at her, stunned, set adrift.

She wasn’t going to tell.

Tommy’s face froze, his eyes locked helplessly on Felicity as she turned stiffly away from him, hurrying over to the computers.

She had promised him. She had _promised_.

It was supposed to end. The shoe was meant to drop, the sword to fall, and this goddamned, _ridiculous_ farce to come to an end.

 _I don’t want this_.

Tommy swallowed around a hard lump of disillusionment.

Oliver cleared his throat, and Tommy’s head snapped up. Oliver stood awkwardly by the med bench, carefully stone faced. He cut his eyes covertly from Felicity’s unyielding back and ducked his chin to catch Tommy’s gaze.

“You okay?”

Tommy’s lips parted, a slow ungluing as his tongue fumbled for words if not for _meaning_. “It’s… I’m fine.”

It rang so hollow it had to reverberate even through to Oliver, but though his eyelids flickered, Oliver only nodded, drawing his head back with a nasal inhale.

“Sure,” he agreed lightly. “Um. So I brought you some more stuff.”

Tommy blinked, feeling like a beam of light fractured through a prism; caught between the truth and the lie, the promise and the betrayal. Felicity wanted more time. How much more?

How much more of this could he stand?

Oliver turned to the duffel atop the med bench and pulled at the zipper. “Here. I got you shoes. Sorry the last ones didn’t fit.”

Oliver turned to him, holding forth a pair of sturdy motorcycle boots and thick socks. They were black leather, only lightly scuffed, strong quality. Two years ago, Tommy would have loved them, laughed and preened and joked.

But now, the earnest, strained hope shining like lamplight behind Oliver’s eyes, the clear care with which he’d picked out something nice, something he thought Tommy would _like_ …

He swallowed, trying to force down the lump of salt and sour brine that thickened in his throat.

His bare feet carried him across the cold cement in an absent drift, and he lifted his hands to accept what Oliver offered.

The shoes rested in his hands, heavier than their weight belied.

“Try them on?” Tommy raised his brows to look up at Oliver, who shifted his weight from foot to foot, hand shoving into his back pockets. He was nervous. Nervous and so stupidly, desperately _hopeful_.

_I don’t want this._

Tommy leaned back against the bench obligingly, bending to roll the socks onto his feet. The hems of his jeans were rolled up as well, borrowed from Oliver and just those couple of inches too long. He put his feet into the shoes and zipped them up, curling his toes against the soles, testing the insoles.

They fit perfectly.

“Yeah?” Oliver prodded gently, leaning beside him and folding his arms over his chest. “They’re good?”

“They’re great.” Tommy clipped the words tightly, straightening and tapping the toe of one boot against the floor. “Thanks.”

“It’s the least I can do,” Oliver answered, low and somber. He dipped his head to catch Tommy’s eye, expression sobering. “Really. I’m sorry we’ve left you stuck down here the whole week. It’s just—it’s temporary.”

Tommy just stared at him, his teeth locking together.

_Temporary._

He didn’t turn to look at Felicity, typing quietly at her desk, but he could feel her presence behind him, feel the distance, how much there was and how much there wasn’t, like she was a fire, and refusing to let him burn.  

“It’s fine,” he told Oliver through clenched teeth. “I understand.”

Oliver shifted a little closer. “Felicity said you’ve been upstairs?”

“I just wanted—” Tommy cut himself off with a flare of nostrils, jaw clenching.

What he wanted? To breathe aboveground, to walk among his ghosts, to bridge his past, his present. None of that mattered.

He cut his eyes over to Felicity, her face blank in profile, stubbornly ignoring them.

 _Clearly_.

“I like what Thea did with it,” he redirected. He paused, realizing he hadn’t asked about Thea all week, never once asking where she was, never pretended to not know she was _gone_.

Oliver eased into the space the hesitation made, his elbow brushing Tommy’s arm as he pulled a phone from his back pocket. “She would have loved to hear you approve. She did a great job with it.” He grimaced, sighed. “God knows it would have gone to ruin without her. I just… I couldn’t—”

“Of course—”

“I’m sorry.” Oliver’s head came up sharply as he looked at Tommy as if for absolution. “It was your legacy, and I should have done better to-to keep it going, but…”

Tommy stiffened, every muscle freezing in mortification. “Oliver—”

But Oliver cut him off, his hand rising to grasp at Tommy’s bicep, a strangeness of desperation tingeing his eager explanation. “I tried, Tommy. To honor you. To make up for… for everything. That I did. How I failed you. Everything you said to me before—you were right, and I wouldn’t listen, and when you—when you _died_ ,” Oliver’s voice broke over the word, to Tommy’s horror, “I couldn’t stand knowing how you’d thought of me… it’s why I…”

He swallowed hard, his whole body leaning towards Tommy as if against a stiff wind, his brows knotted together in a plea for understanding, for forgiveness.

Acid washed over Tommy’s tongue. He was going to be sick.

Oliver’s mouth worked, open, silent for a moment before finally, clumsily, he said, “I stopped killing. I wanted—I wanted to be the man you wanted me to be. Not a killer.”

Tommy’s chest felt caved in, and suddenly he gasped for a thin, whistling breath. “Oliver, please—”

“I just wanted you to know,” Oliver rushed to say. He squeezed gently at Tommy’s arm before finally, hurriedly letting go. “You’ve—you’ve been with me this whole time. I hope—” His face pinched, something shivering into fear into anguish into blazing, stupid, naked _hope_. “I hope I was with you, too. Whatever you went through, wherever you were. I hope I was there with you. Somehow. I wish I was.”

 _It should have been me_.

The echo rang in the fine bones in Tommy’s ears, hopeless and sobbed and underpinned by the creak and rumble of a world, a life, collapsing.

Tommy felt cold, all the blood draining from his face and his throat thickening with nausea.

He searched Oliver’s familiar face, in the last year drawn in such simple, careless lines by memory drained of all feeling. Under Talia’s tutelage, in Tommy’s mind’s eye, Oliver’s eyes hadn’t held worlds of unutterable emotion, hadn’t glittered with decades of shared experience, good or bad, misunderstood or known better than any other. They had just been blue.

“You weren’t,” he whispered, rough and small. He thought of cold rooms and empty space and sharp knives and the hot, copper sting of blood and pain, and the utter _absence_ that grew in it. “You weren’t. It’s better that way.”

Oliver’s mouth fell open, his face slacking like Tommy had pulled the floor from beneath him.

Tommy looked away.

Oliver drew breath behind him, but Tommy turned away, casting his gaze on Felicity.

“Tommy…” There was such _anguish_ in his voice. Such sincere, pleading anguish. “I know, before, when we—when you—”

“Died,” Tommy supplied flatly, irrationally contemptuous of Oliver’s difficulty saying the word. He folded his arms tightly across his chest, fists tucking against his ribs as if to keep them close, keep them under control.

At her desk, back turned to them, Felicity stilled as if she could feel Tommy’s eyes on her.

Oliver swallowed so thickly Tommy could hear him choking on his own heart. “I know.” Another bracing breath. “There was a lot left unfinished. Between us. Conversations I’ve scripted in my head so many times, apologies I wish I’d made…”

Tommy’s shoulders twitched violently. “I don’t need your apologies, Oliver.”

Felicity froze in her seat, and Tommy realized her stiffness wasn’t awareness of his stare. She was _listening_.

Holding her breath and waiting for him to say something he shouldn’t. To ruin the calm she had so desperately fabricated. To bring the storm crashing down on all their heads, wherever the lightning may strike.

His teeth groaned against each other and his breath hissed thin and furious between his lips.

“Okay,” Oliver said softly, almost mournfully, after a pause that pulled like a rubber band. “I—I understand. I just… I just wanted to say that I understand and I—I deserve it. If you—after everything, if you… hate me…”

Tommy’s eyes flew wide, his fists spasming beneath his elbows, fingernails biting crescents at his palms. His head snapped around and he stared at Oliver, his expression wooden, nostrils flared and mouth thinned to a bloodless slash. “Hate you?”

Oliver visibly flinched at the incredulous scorn in Tommy’s tone. Oliver’s brows pulled together in confusion and he frowned. “The things we said in CRNI… the apologies, the—the forgiveness. You were _dying_. I thought maybe, maybe you wouldn’t feel the same now as you did then, without that ultimatum pushing you.”

There was a rolling scrape of plastic wheels against cement, but Tommy turned away from Felicity to give Oliver his full attention, his skin beginning to feel altogether too tight, too hot, like it would split over the sharpness of his knuckles and his jaw and show a seething darkness at the seams. “What am I supposed to have reconsidered here, Ollie?” His words snapped crisp between his teeth, brittle with sarcasm. “What am I hating you for? Killing my dad and lying about it because I was bleeding out?”

Oliver’s eyelids flickered, his jaw clenched, but he held his ground, squaring his shoulders as if on instinct against Tommy’s growingly combative stance.

Tommy tipped his head on one side and felt the jerk of his mouth, a jagged slash of a smirk. “Or maybe the thing where you fucked my ex-girlfriend about five minutes after telling me to fight for her?”

Blanching, Oliver’s head pulled back before his chin dipped down, a nod of shame and acceptance.

“Or wait,” Tommy guessed mockingly, squinting. “Maybe you mean that whole bit where you let me drunkenly humiliate myself with that sloppy-ass right hook and watched me skid across the club floor.”

Oliver lifted his head on a deep inhale, his lips bitten together as he stood and just _took it_ as Tommy dished out vitriol.

Every word he spat charged fire through his veins, the fury thickening in his brain clarifying rather than occluding. His lips skinned back in a teeth-baring grin, trapping a barking laugh under his tongue. “Of course, I guess you could mean that whole business where you _murdered_ people.”

He watched Oliver’s throat bob, the expression on his face like a man who had been waiting and waiting and was _finally_ getting what he deserved.

It made Tommy _livid_.

He let the smile drop from his face, eyes hooding. “But hey, you stopped all that, right? Turned over a new if just as green leaf. Ditched the Hood and became the Arrow, a _hero_ , for real.” Oliver’s brows twitched over his wounded eyes, and there it was again, that idiotic spark of _hope_. Tommy snorted. “Oh wait, except for that Count guy.” There were twin gasps, the one behind Tommy almost lost under the sharp breath Oliver took. “But that one—” he chuckled, a low, dark rumble, “well, there wasn’t _really_ a choice to make with that one, was there.”

Shock and confusion rippled over Oliver’s face, and a grim satisfaction slid slug-like into Tommy’s gut. Did Oliver even recognize his own words reflected back at him? Let him wonder how Tommy knew them to echo.

Oliver certainly couldn’t guess Tommy had heard them from Felicity’s own lips, vague with the distraction of Tommy’s fingers tapping that steady rhythm against her knee, slurred by another round of drugs moving sluggishly through her veins.

Tommy pushed a breath out through his nose, biting down on a scoff. He shook his head as Oliver searched his face, one of his hands gripping the edge of the medical bench, looking at Tommy as if only just really starting to see him past his ghost.

“I don’t hate you, Oliver. I don’t care about the bodies you’ve dropped.” He uncrossed his arms and let his hands drop to hang at his sides, palms stinging as the cool air bit at the fresh half-moon welts there. With one last pitying, sidelong glance, he turned away, ready to focus his attention now on Felicity. Bitterly, he muttered, “You’re not the only one with blood on your hands.”

“Wait,” Oliver snapped, his hand latching onto Tommy’s shoulder as he turned his back to him. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Tommy held stone-still under Oliver’s hand and looked at Felicity. Her chair had pivoted towards them as Tommy had laid into Oliver and she sat now at its edge, straining forward, her hands clutching at the armrests as if to keep her anchored there. The tendons in her neck stood out, her expression stricken, face pale but for two spots of color high in her cheeks and the bright, pretty pink of her mouth. Her eyes were wide behind her glasses, wet with fear and _begging_. Begging him for silence.

Oliver’s fingers tightened on Tommy’s shoulder, digging into the muscle just above his collarbone. “Tommy—you can tell me. Just _talk to me_. Whatever they did to you, whatever they forced on you, no matter what you had to do—it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what you did, I—”

Felicity disappeared before Tommy’s eyes in a sudden flicker of red. He jerked free of Oliver’s hand and spun on his heel, lips pulled back from his teeth. “You _what_?” He spat, flecks of spittle flying off his lips with his vehemence. “You _forgive me_ , Oliver?”

He laughed, full-throated and edged like knives, and Oliver rocked back on his heels

Tommy sneered. “Maybe you should ask what I’ve done first.” Oliver shook his head, a jerky, automatic motion, and Tommy turned a smirk over his shoulder as Felicity pushed to her feet, her chair rolling away to clatter gently against her desk. Tommy turned back to Oliver with his head bent forward, eyes locked on Oliver’s as Tommy licked his lips. “Maybe you should ask what I’ve done to _her_.”

Oliver stood stunned, dumbstruck, and in the pause, as the wheels turned with an unwilling screech behind Oliver’s eyes, Felicity’s flats pattered three rapid steps forward, her voice ragged with desperation. “Tommy, don’t—”

“What?” The word dragged up out of Oliver’s throat, rough and ugly, some blind monster from the deeps. His adam’s apple bobbed in his throat and he blinked slowly at Tommy. “What are you talking about?” His head jerked as if on a string and he pinned Felicity with those round, shocked eyes. “What is he _talking_ about?”

Tommy took a step forward. Just one step, rolling on the balls of his feet; predatory, intent. His hand flashed up and shoved forcefully at Oliver’s chest and, unprepared, Oliver stumbled back.

One step. Two.

He stared at Tommy like he wanted to wake up.

 _Wake up_ , a cold voice in Tommy’s head hissed. _Dream’s over. The nightmare’s real_.

“See, you might _forgive_ me for the blood on my hands, _Ollie_ ,” Tommy began, voice low, almost amiable but for the black undercurrent that whispered warnings of riptide. “You might _forgive me_ for the people I’ve killed in the last year.” Oliver’s lips parted, trembled. “For the ones I’ve _tortured_. Taken apart piece by bloody piece with my own hands and a few carefully selected tools.” He grinned, a quick flash, sudden and gone. “Even the ones I’m not very sorry about.”

He stepped forward again, brought both hands up and shoved again.

Oliver fell back another step. Two.

Tommy laughed softly, the void given breath. “But though the reverse may not be true, I still know you. You won’t just forgive me for what I’ve done to Felicity.”

Breathing hard, chest heaving, Oliver’s expression rippled, his brows pulling together like thunderclouds. “What did you do, Tommy?” His shoulders squared up, his fists clenching at his sides. “What did you do!”

“Where do you want me to start!” Tommy barked, his teeth clicking on the words. His hands convulsed, fingers open, flexing claws by his sides. “How about at the beginning, Ollie? With the order to snatch her out of her bed and throw her in a van, the order that _I gave_ —”

“Tommy, _stop!_ ” Felicity shouted.

Oliver took a step back, his face emptying, revelation washing the disbelief and upset right out of his features—but only for a moment. A breath later— _there_. There it was at last. That igniting spark of rage glinting in Oliver’s eyes, the clench of his jaw, his lips twitching over gritted teeth.

Exhilaration soared through Tommy like a hot wind into a closed, stifled room. Behind him, Felicity’s breath echoed raggedly in the suddenly silent space, but Tommy dismissed her with a thought. This was his bed; she didn’t get to stop him from lying in it anymore.

Lips parting, Oliver drew a long, thin breath, visibly shaking in a struggle for control. “No,” he rejected, quiet, adamant. “You didn’t—you couldn’t—” he shook his head, face spasming in a suppressed, closed-lipped snarl. “ _No_.”

Scoffing, Tommy pressed forward another stride. “ _Yes_. But you’re right, maybe we should start instead with the interrogation I oversaw and directed. Tied to a chair for _hours_ , and do you know she had a panic attack with the first round of drugs?” He laughed, friendly and hollow. “Little holdover from that whole thing with the _Count_ , she told me.” He turned his head, his smile cut like broken glass. “You remember that, Felicity? Or, no, guess you might not, that was hour five or six or something, you were pretty fucked up on that cocktail by then.”

“Oh, god,” Felicity exhaled, staring at him in horror like he’d punched her in the chest.

A twinge of nausea, regret, prickled in Tommy’s throat, and he swallowed thickly. He tore his gaze from hers and looked away.

He focused again on Oliver, on Oliver’s rigid posture, his tightly balled fists, the slowly brewing storm on his face.

The flames roared up in Tommy’s chest anew. How could Oliver just listen to this and _stand there_?

“What!” He roared suddenly, his hands slapping at his own chest for emphasis, “That’s not enough for you? How far into the base did you get, Oliver?” A step forward. “Did you make it into the basement? See the cell where I _kept her_? How did she refer to it; I _buried her underground_.”

“Stop,” Oliver rumbled through his teeth, setting his feet, shoulders squaring up and head lowering.

Tommy didn’t. Another step. Another frozen blade of a smile. “Oh, don’t you worry, I didn’t leave her _lonely_ down there. I kept her company, sometimes almost every night.” Oliver’s eyes flew wide, and Tommy laughed at the assumption on his face. “Oh, no, Ollie, not like _that_. We _talked_. Joked around, played card games. You ever play poker with this girl?” He chuckled, broken pieces of mirthless sound as he hooked a thumb jauntily over his shoulder. “Good thing it wasn’t strip poker or I’d have had to shop for a whole new wardrobe in the first month.”

Tommy drew up in front of Oliver and shoved at him again; this time, Oliver’s sole slid with a rubber squeak against the concrete and he surged forward, his own hands coming up flash-fast and fisting in Tommy’s shirt front. He glared down the scant couple of inches between them, his eyes burning like a history going up in flames. “Shut. _Up_.”

Tommy twisted Oliver’s shirt collar in his own fingers, teeth bared in a deathshead grin. “You’re right, I shouldn’t _lie,_ ” he spat the word and it echoed, targeted at Felicity even as his eyes bored into Oliver’s. “It’s dishonest to say _nothing_ ever happened down there, not when she thought it would be so _smart_ to try and seduce me. Clever Felicity with her clever, _clever_ mouth—”

The hit caught him square in the jaw and sent Tommy to the floor, wheeling and striking the medical bench with a crash on the way down. He caught himself on his hands, nearly flattening when the duffel bag Oliver had left on the bench tumbled down and bounced off his back.

Salt and copper bloomed bright and rich on Tommy’s tongue and he touched the pad of his thumb to his bottom lip. It came away red.

He laughed and twisted around to grin up at Oliver, lips pulling back as he swiped his tongue over bloodied teeth. He bared them in a grisly grin. “ _Finally_.”

Oliver stood where Tommy’d left him, his whole posture aggressive, shoulders up and curved forward, fists at waist height, ready. Breath hissed through his teeth as he stared down at Tommy with wide eyes, his face an enraged mask. His eyes were oddly focused, as if he was seeing Tommy clearly at last, but recognized nothing he saw.

Tommy chuckled again, reaching up to grip the edge of the bench to haul himself up, eyes never leaving Oliver’s. His voice was poison, lashing at Oliver as if it might strip skin. “What did it, Ollie? What I did? What _she_ did?” His mouth fell open in deep, echoing laughter. “Or was it just that I got there _first_ for once?”

Face reddening, Oliver roared his outrage. “Shut _up!!_ ”

He strode thunderously forward, but Tommy was ready this time and ducked the swing that followed, spinning on his heel to get behind him.

Oliver was less prepared for the elbow Tommy drove into his back, stumbling forward with a grunt.

“I’m not your miracle!” Tommy seethed as Oliver straightened and whirled. He caught another blow with his forearm, ducked a high, sweeping kick. “Haven’t you learned, Oliver? Dreams don’t come true; _nightmares_ do!”

Tommy’s right hook caught Oliver in the jaw, but his next deflected blow struck Tommy’s shoulder, sending a sharp spike of pain through his collarbone.

They slipped into a trade, passing bruises back and forth with fists and feet.

Slipping through the back of his head as dark and insidious as shadow, Tommy heard Talia’s voice echoing from the training room at the base, when she had paralyzed him with a word.

_“But you still move like a boxer. You are not brawling in college bars anymore, Thomas Merlyn.”_

It was at Oliver’s side Tommy had first learned how to hold his fists, how to hit, how to take a blow. At Oliver’s back he had brawled in bars and scrapped in nightclub back alleys.

His head snapped back with a blow that tore at his bloodied lip—a blow that all of Talia's careful, brutal molding and training should have let him evade.

He spat blood and tackled Oliver around the waist, crashing with him to the ground. Oliver punched him in the diaphragm and rolled them over, pinning Tommy with a hand around his throat. Oliver raised his other hand high in a tight fist, his eyes wild and teeth bared.

Hands locked around Oliver’s wrist, Tommy stared up at him and thought dimly how fitting it was, to end as he began.

Tommy let his hands slip away from Oliver’s wrist. Oliver’s fingers tightened reflexively against Tommy’s throat, and clouds of darkness began to roll in at the edges of Tommy’s vision.

Underneath him, in the back pocket of his jeans, a hard lump dug into him; a flechette.

“Enough!” _Felicity_.

Oliver’s fist came down like a hammer and raised again.

Tommy could reach for the flechette.

Could end this.

He just wanted to _end_.

The pressure on his throat tightened again, and Tommy gasped, thin, whistling; not enough. His hands fell slack against cold concrete.

His vision began to black out, the dark clouds rolling over Oliver’s face, narrowing Tommy’s focus to those split, bloodied knuckles hovering above.

Oliver dropped his fist again.

“ _Stop!!_ ”

Suddenly, the pressure on Tommy’s throat, Oliver’s weight pinning his hips, was gone.

Tommy gulped at the air, back arching as a raw cough ripped through his throat. His vision cleared slowly, the dark clouds peeling back to a thin, shadowed fog as he curled in around his gut, twisting his head to search for Oliver.

Felicity had dragged him to his feet almost to the weapons bench, her arms locked around his shoulder and bicep. Oliver’s fist still shook, Tommy’s blood smeared across the fingers. He was looking at Felicity as if trying to see her through the haze of his fury, and her grip on him quickly became his grip on her.

“Felicity, stay away from him, he’s—”

She shoved away from him, glaring, backing away as Oliver reached for her again. “Beaten half to _death_ ,” she finished heatedly.

She whirled on her heel, turning her attention on Tommy. Her eyes blazed with accusation as she took three rapid steps towards him, her jaw clenched tightly and her chin jutted forward.

He’d ruined it all. Despite the ache in his throat and the throbbing pain in his face, he couldn’t even summon up the will to be sorry.

The truth was out.

“Felicity, don’t—!”

Chest heaving still with wheezing breaths, Tommy dug the flechette out of his back pocket and raised it, point aimed at Felicity. “Stop.”

She stopped, eyes blowing wide not with fear, but with outrage. “You _promised_ me—”

“You shouldn’t have stopped him,” Tommy slurred, weary, frustrated. He leveraged himself into a crouch, the flechette aimed steadily at Felicity. He glared up at her, dull with misery. “You shouldn’t have _stopped_ him.”

“Put. It. Down.” Oliver’s voice was a dark, seething growl, drawing all eyes to the bow he had taken up from the weapons bench, arrow nocked and trained on Tommy’s chest.

Felicity’s head snapped around, her expression briefly panicked as she looked at Oliver. “Oliver, no!” She took a hurried sideways step, putting herself in the way of Oliver’s line of sight.

Oliver hissed, head jerking to the side in irritation. “ _Felicity_. Move!”

She squared her shoulders and glared back. “No.”

“You need to stop protecting him!” Oliver spat, drawing the arrow back tighter, the taut bowstring creaking with the strain. “Everything he said, everything he’s _done_ —”

“Felicity, get out of the _way_ ,” Tommy barked, desperation radiating like needle-thin fingers in his gut up into his chest.

She spun in place, putting her back to Oliver to glare at Tommy. “ _No!_ ” She stepped forward, jaw squared and tight-pressed lips trembling, and ignored when Oliver barked her name. “You remember what I told you in the Jeep, Tommy?”

He stared at her, a tremor running through him as the clawing, screaming need to just be _finished_ jammed in his throat. The flechette wavered.

“ _Remember_ , Tommy?”

He remembered. The highway lights passing over them in orange strips. His side on fire, blood everywhere as he pulled Ar-Rāqiṣ’s  knife from just under his ribs.

_“You don’t get to die on me, Tommy Merlyn, do you hear me? You don’t get off that easy.”_

With a sob, Tommy dropped his arm, his head bowing.

Felicity’s breath exploded in a shaking exhale.

He didn’t get to be _finished_. He owed Felicity too much.

Tommy looked up through the fringe hanging over his forehead. Behind Felicity, Oliver stood with his bow still drawn, his eyes lit with a cold fury.

Tommy knew he couldn’t stay either.

He burst into motion, throwing himself into a sideways roll.

Behind him: “Oliver, no!”

Something clattered to the floor; Oliver cursed.

Tommy launched out of the roll to his feet, one hand snagging the handles of Oliver’s duffel bag on the way up. He threw himself towards the door, crashing against it with a pained grunt.

“Tommy,” Oliver bellowed, “stop!”

He pulled open the door with a yank that wrenched at his bruised shoulder and bit back a yelp.

Lightning ripped the sky outside, washing the world white for a split second. With a final backward glance—at Oliver, eyes bright and wild and a storm of emotion; at Felicity, pushing Oliver back, a dawning realization spreading over her face—Tommy bolted out the door and into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience and for sticking with me and this story, everyone. I appreciate it more than I could possibly say.


	6. But We Have Monsters Inside of Us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please pardon the long wait, your author is a mess of a human.
> 
> Warnings this chapter for: Body horror; PTSD

Diggle righted the medical bench with a sigh, a muscle in his jaw ticking despite the strict calm he outwardly enforced. It wasn’t so much that the table, knocked askew, bothered him as that he needed something to do with his hands.

The foundry was thick with a silence John imagined had scarcely broken before even his and Roy’s arrival, the tension growing only more smothering since Oliver had made the terse, growling phone call that had pulled Digg away from his bed and Lyla’s side.

He couldn’t say he hadn’t expected something like this.

John brushed his glance over Oliver and Felicity, exiled to their separate corners: Felicity at her desk with her back to the room, spine rigid, hands motionless on the keyboard; Oliver at the weapons bench and caught in a dangerous stillness as he glared at the rack of arrows mounted there. Diggle doubted they had so much as looked at each other in the last hour.

Given the electric current flowing from one to the other, primed to explode, it was probably for the best.

Digg and Roy had been given the shortest possible rundown of recent events—Tommy revealing his complicity in Felicity’s kidnapping, the resultant throwdown between him and Oliver and the former ultimately bolting into the city—before Digg had realized they were missing someone who would need to hear the full story with the rest of them.

He hoped the waiting wouldn’t go on much longer. Sitting in a powder keg and hoping it didn’t blow itched at his nerves.

Roy sidled up beside him with a grimace, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his hoodie. “Awkward,” he muttered, drawing the word out in a low singsong.

Inhaling deeply, John let his eyes roll briefly shut. “Roy.”

The kid’s shoulders hunched up, but his chin raised defiantly. “What?”

Digg just shook his head and Roy rolled his eyes, deflating with a sigh and sinking into a crabby quiet.

At that moment, the muffled sound of the code punching in on the other side of the alley door preceded the disarm-tone, and Laurel pushed through the door, still dressed in a gray work suit, though her ubiquitous heels had been traded for comfortable running shoes.

She froze in the doorway as all eyes turned to her. “Geez. Warm welcome.” She shut the door behind her and frowned, eyes automatically seeking out Oliver as she addressed him. “Want to tell me why you summoned me back to the clubhouse?” She ran a hand over her hip, smoothing invisible wrinkles as she frowned. “Last time I got a call like this, you were racing out the door for a rescue mission.”

Oliver just stared at her, the sizzling aura of anger around him momentarily dulling as a deer-in-the-headlights look stole over his face.

Eyes narrowing, Laurel’s frown deepened and she sought eye contact from the others in the room—and faltered.

Diggle winced as Laurel did another rapid sweep of the room, eyes widening as she counted heads. “Where’s Tommy?”

The already taut atmosphere of the room palpably contracted; Oliver’s clenching fists; Felicity’s knuckles whitening around the arms of her chair; even Roy’s “yikes” raised eyebrows. Laurel’s expression sharpened and she took a step forward, a breath sucking between her lips promising to slice like a whip on the exhale.

Lips thinning, Diggle sighed and stepped in to attempt a defusing. He raised his hands to waist height, lowering them slightly in a calming gesture. “Laurel. Listen.” Her blazing eyes focused on him and he almost regretted voluntarily wading into the shit. But there was no use in pussyfooting around the subject. “Tommy’s gone.”

For a moment, Laurel’s face was a naked, unguarded glimpse into her nightmares. Like shutters snapping closed, her brows pulled together in furious incomprehension, an automatic rejection in the tiny shake of her head. “Wha—” Her eyes swept the room again, as if another pass would reveal Tommy leaning against the server bank or lying on the cot all the while. She landed on Oliver, and when he didn’t raise his head, his jaw twitching, Laurel’s gaze returned to make demands of John. “What do you mean _he’s gone_?”

Diggle opened his mouth and drew a breath, still groping for the right calm, measured words—

—and with a startling crash, Felicity brought both fists down on her desktop.

“He’s _gone_!” she spat, caustic and seething, breath hissing between her teeth as she glared at her shaking fists.

Diggle stared at her, for a moment lost as he watched Felicity sit, immolated by some rage he could discern neither the source nor the target of. For a moment, his stomach sinking like an elevator dragged down by the hand of gravity itself, he feared she would burn herself up with this anger boiling off of her.

Laurel was the first to recover, turning on Oliver and advancing towards him. This time, her voice shook as much with fear as with outrage. “Then why aren’t you out there _looking_ for him!” She reached out and grabbed Oliver by the bicep, shaking his arm. “Stop standing around and go _find him_!”

Oliver’s head lifted slowly, his jaw clenched so tightly the bones seemed to threaten to split the skin at the corners. Nostrils flaring with an unsteady exhale, Oliver raised the hand of the arm Laurel grasped, broad palm and fingers spread. He turned his head slowly to look at Laurel, and there was such a churning darkness in his eyes that her mouth fell open, taken aback.

With a deliberate, measured economy of force and motion, Oliver jerked his arm cleanly from Laurel’s grip. She looked at him with that expression that never failed to curdle pity in Digg’s gut, as if she was discovering a stranger behind a face she thought she knew.

She took one careful step backwards. But only one.

She stood waiting, brows lowered and chin thrust stubbornly forward.

Oliver sighed like a failed exorcism; an expulsion that left him no lighter. “There’s something you need to hear,” he told Laurel, his voice the grim side of soft that carried. Then, though his eyes tracked purposefully to Felicity’s rigid back, he said to the room, “That _all_ of us need to hear.”

Felicity’s shoulders bunched towards her ears like hackles rising. She didn’t turn around. “Oliver…” She seemed to roll the syllables around in her mouth like gravel, rough and hard and clicking against her teeth.

“What I need to _hear_ ,” Laurel began with an evenness that waited to tip precariously into extremes, “is _where_. Tommy. Is.”

Oliver shoved away from the weapons bench so suddenly that the legs scraped tooth-rattlingly against the cement. He glared at Felicity, jaw pushing forward as he growled in the back of his throat. “ _Gone_.” He turned on a dime, his gaze lashing Laurel like a whip as he flung a hand towards the door. “He ran _away_. Like a coward. He’s out _there_ somewhere!”

Felicity swiveled her chair around to glare at him. “If he’s not _bleeding_ to death in an alley somewhere!”

Laurel paled, hands clapping to her mouth as she gasped. “ _What_?”

Diggle felt his own mouth fall open, his brows climbing slowly. Roy whistled lowly and they shared a quick glance. Oliver’s split knuckles had hinted, but the story sounded deeper than implied.

Felicity shoved to her feet, her chair rolling anticlimactically away to the side. She ignored it, eyes burning on Laurel as she stabbed a finger at Oliver. “ _He_ beat the shit out of him! Would have _killed_ him!”

“Oliver!” Laurel choked, face horrified and eyes begging for explanation.

“Maybe I _should have_ ,” Oliver roared, his eyes wild as they swept over the faces around him. “If you knew—”

“Are you serious?” Roy interrupted, incredulous. “No, I’m asking. You just said you shoulda killed the guy I watched you cry snot over a week ago. Are you _serious_?”

Digg winced, eyelids fluttering in resistance of the urge to roll closed at Roy’s tactlessness. He tried to interject, tried to infuse his tone with calm and level the skyrocketing temperature of the room. “Oliver—”

“Tommy _took Felicity_!!” Oliver bellowed. He stood rigid with fists shaking, the cords of his neck and veins at his temples standing out. “He was working _for_ the League, and _he_ made the call to snatch her out of her bed in the middle of the night!” Oliver’s attention bored into Diggle like a drill. “That cell you saw at the base? _He_ locked her in there! He—”

The rest of the sentence snapped off like a broken bone, jagged and painful, a sudden silence that erupted bloody through the skin.

“Oh my god,” Laurel breathed, her hands covering half of her face. She staggered back a step under the impact of the shock.

The rage in Oliver’s face flickered, and it was then that John recognized what fueled it, what Oliver was burning just to keep his feet underneath him.

Grief.

There were two types of that gut-wrenching, knife-twisting grief, John knew. Oliver had been wearing mourning for Tommy’s death so close against his skin he’d begun to make it part of him. But this—this grief for a living tragedy—this was new on him, and he itched and twitched beneath it like a horse under a cloud of vicious, biting flies.

As John watched, Oliver inhaled that dark cloud and swallowed it down, his face hardening as he sank that grief deep in his gut.

Finger tapping insistently at the air by his side, Oliver’s voice rolled out like fresh cement, adamant, not yet set but determined to crystalize. “We did not get Tommy back. That is _not_ Tommy.”

As Roy turned gravely worried eyes to Digg and Laurel’s sheened with tears, Felicity’s faint scoff shattered through the room like a shotgun blast.

All attention turned to her as she pulled the chair closer again and sat down, back straight and chin high, upper lip curled. “That is bullshit, Oliver.”

Despite himself, Diggle couldn’t help the little blossom of warmth that spread in his heart to see her sit there so strong and defiant. Home. Here and safe, and though worse for the wear, nevertheless unbroken.

She had been standing up to Oliver’s bullishness and speaking her mind from the very start. It was how Digg had known he was going to like her. That, innocent though she was, she would bring to their operation a mind and a will they would be better for. That she could sit in that chair like it was her own throne and meet Oliver Queen glare for glare even after all she’d been through could only look like a good sign to John.

Oliver, of course, took it rather differently.

“Excuse me?” he ground out, low and dangerous. Grit scraped under his foot as he pivoted to face Felicity, and for a worrying moment, John took in the broad set of Oliver’s shoulders and the curl of his hands, and he wondered if Oliver was looking at Felicity and seeing Tommy instead.

Chin thrusting forward, Felicity put her head to one side and looked at Oliver as if he was being deliberately contrary. “He’s ‘not Tommy?’ That’s _bullshit_ , Oliver. It isn’t remotely that simple, and you know it.”

Oliver’s head ticked up a notch and he glared down his nose at Felicity. “It looks pretty _goddamn_ simple to me. He worked for the League of Assassins. He wasn’t their _prisoner_ , he took _you_ prisoner. He wasn’t tortured. He tortured _for_ them. He has blood all over his hands.” Felicity scoffed and rolled her eyes, turning her face away, and red crept up the back of Oliver’s neck and darkened the rims of his ears as a vein in his temple pulsed. With each point he made next, he jabbed a finger at Felicity. “He _tied you to a chair_! He _drugged_ you! For hours!”

Her head snapped towards him, her nostrils flaring and knuckles whitening as her fingers gripped the arms of her chair. “You think I don’t know that?” she spat, pressing one hand to her chest. “I was there, Oliver! It happened _to me_!”

Oliver talked over her, his volume rising like a storm wind. “The Tommy I knew could have never done this! He wasn’t a killer, or, or this _monster_ who can tie down innocent women and _force_ them—” He bared his teeth as he bit off that sentence, and Digg’s eyes narrowed, the hair on his neck rising in suspicion.

But Oliver shook his head sharply and went on, “Whatever they did, something happened, I don’t know if it was dying, or whatever they did to bring him back in that godforsaken _pit_ , but it’s _not him_. That is not the same Tommy who—who learned to ride bikes next to me!” The furious mask on Oliver’s face began to crack, showing beneath it a roiling desperation and pleading panic. “That’s not the Tommy who learned to french braid Thea’s hair for her first day of school, or—who—” he choked on a rising backlog of examples, the history between the two men catching in his teeth and strangling him. In a thin tangle of a voice, he all but begged, “That’s not him. That is not _my_ Tommy.”

Grimly, John turned his head to glance at Laurel, unexpectedly silent still. She stood with her hands still pressed over her mouth, pale with shock, and as Diggle watched, a tear spilled over her lashes and dashed down her cheek, slipping a slow course over the ridges of her fingers unheeded.

Cringing in pity, Digg looked away.

Seeming to feel no such pity, Felicity tipped her head back to look down her nose at Oliver, her face carved from ice in rare coldness. Her tone was withering. “Stop projecting, Oliver. Just because _you_ can’t reconcile who you were with who you are and the things you’ve done doesn’t mean the world is so neatly compartmentalized.” She sat forward, her hands still clenched around the arms of the chair as Oliver looked at her like he’d been slapped. “He’s _exactly the same_ Tommy you grew up. Exactly the same one you _buried_. He’s _different_ like you’re different, like _I’m_ different, like _we all are_!”

She started out precise and measured, but by the end her voice had risen to a shout. Through it, Oliver coiled tighter like a spring, some tremor working its way down his shoulders and into the fists at his sides. Unconsciously, Digg took a step forward, unsure who he was worried for or about.

Oliver glared at Felicity with a contempt like acid, flowing out of fear and confusion. “You have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.” Felicity drew a breath to fire back, but Oliver stepped aggressively forward, one finger leveled at her. “You have _no idea_ what you’re talking about! You have no _idea_ what it does to you, that kind of darkness, living inside of you and eating you up and leaving _nothing_ that you were behind.” His teeth bared, so caught up in his anger that he didn’t even slow down as Felicity flinched minutely at the expression. “You say I’m projecting? _Fine_. It’s because I know what it is to be that kind of monster, wearing the skin of who you used to be.” His head shook back and forth, back and forth. “You have _no idea_ what torturing and killing makes you become and you don’t _want_ to, but know that I recognize it when I see it.”

As he’d gone on, Felicity’s face had paled, then flushed as her eyes widened and nostrils flared, lips thinning and knuckles blanching. “ _Fuck_ you!” she spat, and Roy whistled under his breath in surprise. “You want to know what _I know_ —”

“Guys.” Diggle stepped forward again, careful to come from Oliver’s right rather than behind him, hands raised as if he could force the rising temperature of the room back to reasonable levels.

“ _Yes_!” Oliver barked, ignoring John. “I would _love_ to know what you know, especially if it’s the truth this time!”

Felicity’s head snapped back on her neck like he had hurled the words at her. “How dare you—”

“Stop.” The word was so soft it barely even registered in Diggle’s ears.

Oliver _cackled_ , bitter and humorless. “Really, Felicity, how _dare_ I, after the lies and the bullshit and _god_ only knows what else?”

“Oliver,” Digg said grimly, trying to force calm over into the other man.

Oliver only glanced at him, sneering and jerking away as Digg reached for him.

“ _Stop_!”

This time all eyes turned to Laurel as her tight, furious shout rang around the room. She glared at each of them, her lips pressed together and trembling and cheeks wet even as her eyes cut across them like daggers.

She pinned Oliver with them in the end. “ _You_ ,” she growled, low and thick with emotion. “Just _shut up_ , Ollie. Just shut _up_ and stop being such a pig-headed jackass for _one minute_ and let this not be about you for _one! Minute!_ ”

The anger emptied out of Oliver’s face in surprise, his mouth falling open as he stumbled back an injured step.

Dismissing him with a seething breath pushed through her teeth, Laurel spread her fingers at her waist as if shoving the irritation away from her. Inhaling and forcing herself calm, she took three rapid steps to put herself between Digg and Oliver and in front of Felicity. Her posture opened, her tone still stiff, forced, but imploring. “Please. Felicity, _please_.” Laurel’s voice cracked, and over her shoulder, Digg watched as something in it seemed to pierce through Felicity and draw something wounded and vulnerable into her expression. “I need answers. I _need_ … I need to know, Felicity.”

Felicity’s lips parted and shook. She swallowed hard, eyes sheening with tears.

Laurel took short, quick steps to close the distance between them and sank to a crouch, her fingers lighting gingerly on the seat of the chair to either side of Felicity’s knees. Her voice was so small, wavering with unshed tears. “ _Please_.”

Laurel looked beseechingly up into Felicity’s face, and Felicity’s chin trembled as she looked back. A tear dashed sudden and startling down her face, dropping from the edge of her jaw to spot on her vivid blue blouse. She turned her head to the side and swiped at the trail it left behind.

Laurel lifted a hand to pat at Felicity’s knee, and Felicity’s reaction was instant and visceral.

Sucking in a sharp breath, she shoved herself into the back of her chair and held up both hands at Laurel, eyes wide. “ _Don’t_. Please.” Laurel gasped softly and gripped the edge of the seat, leaning back a little, and Digg and Oliver both took a step forward before drawing up short. Felicity cringed, biting her lower lip. “I—I’m sorry, it’s just—”

She stopped, cutting herself off as her face emptied. She blinked down at Laurel and, rather suddenly, seemed to crumble. She exhaled like she was letting something go, shoulders slumping.

In a soft, confessional voice, she went on, “It’s just, that’s how he sat. When he drugged and interrogated me.” Laurel’s mouth fell open, and Digg felt his heart drop into his stomach like a stone. Felicity looked down at her lap and rubbed her hand over her knee, frowning. “He kept tapping this steady beat on my knee to keep me focused, so I wouldn’t get too distracted by how much my clothes itched against my skin or how trapped my hands were by the straps. I had to be just distracted enough to answer his questions without thinking too hard, but not so much I didn’t even hear them.” She pursed her lips. “I don’t think they’d used those drugs in combination very many times before me.”

Laurel covered her mouth with one hand, but quickly forced it down into her own lap. Her expression quivered between horror and heartbreak as she asked, “Tommy did that? He did that to you?”

John’s tongue felt dead and useless in his mouth, and at his sides, he curled his hands into very, very careful fists. Oliver made some small noise beside him and, by the medical bench, Roy swore softly under his breath, but John had eyes only for Felicity.

Felicity’s lips pursed, her voice thick with layered meanings and emotions as she answered softly, “Tommy did a lot of things.” She raised her eyes to Laurel’s face as if with great effort and determination, but the expression on her face was strangely calm, a little weary, almost resigned. “I think he was having fun, at first. I remember, the first night I was there and I realized he was… not a friend. We sort of fought and he, he won and he was laughing about how he’d worried I would be boring.”

Laurel, to her credit, kept whatever shock or horror or heartbreak she must surely be feeling in check, the only betrayal of the storm under the surface a tremble in her chin as she waited patiently for Felicity to go on.

Felicity’s chest rose and fell with a tired sigh. “He was Tommy. That struck me over and over from what I remember of the interrogation. He was _Tommy_. Snarky, charming. Just… cold. Detached. I didn’t mean anything to him.” Suddenly, with a quick breath she lifted her head and looked right at Diggle, a bright and burning insistence in her eyes that pierced him straight through. “I never told him about Lyla being pregnant. I wasn’t, I didn’t know for sure for so long but I _know_ now, whatever he got out of me and passed on to Talia, it wasn’t that.”

Something fine and delicate shattered in John’s chest as his lips parted, and the sting of tears pricked at the backs of his eyes. A fear he hadn’t known to feel flashed over him like a sudden heat, there and gone, and in its wake all that was left was a heart bruise-swollen for the small, brave woman in front of him. “I, that’s—” he stuttered, stumbled, and cleared his throat. A small pause to collect himself, and then, gravely, “Thank you.”

She held his gaze for a moment longer, her heart in her eyes as tears spilled down each cheek. It all but killed him not to go to her and pull her against his chest. She gave him a sharp nod that he returned with a small smile, and she swiped the wet from her cheeks and turned resolvedly back to Laurel.

“It’s okay,” Laurel told her quietly, taking one of Felicity’s hand on the chair’s arm into her own.

Felicity laughed. It was a miserable, damp sound, and Diggle loathed it instantly.

Smiling humorlessly, Felicity squeezed Laurel’s hand once and disentangled their fingers. “It’s really not. I’m sorry, but it’s really, really not, not any of it.” She shook her head and sighed. “I can’t… I can’t give you a blow by blow. There’s less of the interrogation that I do remember than I don’t, and a lot of the things that came after…” She lifted her chin to stare over Laurel’s head into the empty half of the room, her bottom lip quivering for a moment as she visibly pulled herself together. Tightly, she whispered, “I just can’t. I don’t… I don’t have the words for it. Not all of it.”

“Just try,” Laurel encouraged gently. “Just what you can.”

Worried Oliver would snarl some objection, Digg glanced at him, but found Oliver instead staring miserably at the floor, his arms crossed tight over his stomach as if holding himself in one piece. He raised his head briefly and caught Diggle’s eye, and what Diggle saw there assured him that, for now, Oliver would say nothing.

Felicity’s mouth hung open for a long moment as if she waited for words to fill it. At long last, she seemed to find them. “They took everything away from me. My clothes, my—my glasses.” She lifted fingertips to the glasses set so familiarly on her nose. “They knew what my prescription was. I woke up after the interrogation wearing contacts.”

“Jesus Christ,” Roy muttered heatedly, and when John glanced at him, he was transfixed by Felicity, horror on his face and his posture bent and hunted.

“Everything was… white or tan or… gray. In the cell,” Felicity went on. “I’m pretty sure it was on purpose. I don’t know exactly why.” Digg had plenty of suspicions, but now was no time to interrupt and speculate. “It was always cold, and I was… I had the same couple sets of clothes. Yoga pants, tank top. There was one thin blanket.” There was a sudden, intense anger in her tone. “They took my entire summer and made it freezing cold and just—”

She cut off with a huff, trying to head the oncoming ramble off at the pass.

“Tommy did,” Laurel interjected, half confirmation and half question. “Tommy took that from you.”

Felicity looked at her again and nodded. “Yes,” she said softly. She hesitated, as if unsure how to continue. Then, “He visited frequently.”

Beside Digg, Oliver tensed up, breath hissing between his teeth as if he knew what was coming. Digg narrowed his eyes, but bided his silence.

Felicity, catching Oliver’s reaction, looked at him steadily even as she spoke to Laurel. “I kept thinking he was trying to get more information out of me, but he didn’t ask any questions like that anymore. I thought maybe he was just being cruel, you know? Taunting me. And I think maybe it started out at least a little of that.” She focused again on Laurel, who was keeping it together admirably. “I amused him at first, I think. But more and more I realized he wasn’t just bored. He was lonely.”

Oliver scoffed bitterly, and Diggle threw him a warning, suspicious glance.

Felicity stiffened, but otherwise ignored him. “It was like he was thawing out. He couldn’t give a shit about me when I first got there. The way he was when he was questioning me, it was like… I just made no impression. I didn’t _matter_ , beyond whatever answers he was trying to get.”

Brow creased in confusion, Laurel voiced the question burning in the back of John’s throat. “What was he questioning you _about_? What did he want?”

Felicity shrugged. “He started out asking me about Sara. I figured out pretty quick he was really trying to find Nyssa. I still don’t know why. They weren’t really _his_ questions.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why he asked me everything else. I don’t even know what else he _did_ ask me. It just… it all sort of blurred. There are pieces…” she lifted one hand and clawed her fingers, gesturing at her head. “Missing.” She sighed. “I never could make myself ask about everything that happened that night. I just—” she choked up, “I didn’t really _want_ to know.”

Grimly, Laurel nodded. Somehow, she seemed to understand more than Felicity was saying. Digg, the edges of that meaning teasing at his fingertips, was a little afraid to grasp it and _know_.

He supposed maybe he did understand then after all.

Laurel, looking sick, asked in a small voice, “You think he—he did something to you?”

Oliver’s breathing seemed impossibly loud for a moment, a little frantic, a little furious.

Felicity’s emphatic, sure answer surprised it into silence. “No.” Laurel’s expression was quizzical but hopeful, and Felicity offered her a hollow smile. “Nothing like that. I just… I didn’t want to know what I had said. How I might have—” her voice hiccuped, shook with tears she refused to let reach her eyes, “might have betrayed everyone.”

Surprisingly, it was Roy who stepped forward and said adamantly, “You didn’t. Even if you’d said something you shouldn’t, you wouldn’t ever have _betrayed_ us.” His voice was forceful, brows lowered seriously and his eyes steady and earnest on Felicity’s. “It’s not your fault.”

Felicity stared at him, stunned, and Diggle found himself taken a little aback as well. And yet, really, _was_ it a surprise? It wasn’t long before Felicity was taken that Roy had been pumped full of evil drugs and set loose on his own team, and with his membership still brand new and barely more than probationary.

Felicity’s eyes shone again with the tears she’d worked so hard to hold at bay. She sat for a moment and just absorbed Roy’s absolution like an unexpected benediction. Finally, in a small, emotion-choked hush, she said, “Thank you.”

Suddenly awkward, Roy’s posture imploded a little and he gave her a gruff nod, burying  his hands deep in the pockets of his hoodie as he retreated back to the medical bench, a flush creeping into his cheeks.

Oliver cleared his throat. He wouldn’t look up from the floor, his expression conflicted even though his words were tinged waspishly still with bitterness. “Can we get back on topic?”

Digg pursed his lips and shook his head at Oliver disappointedly. Oliver would regret his behavior later, John had no doubt.

Her touched expression souring as Laurel glared at Oliver, Felicity hummed grimly. “Right. Of course. Where was I?”

Laurel answered before Oliver could make a bigger ass of himself. “Tommy visited you,” she paused, looking as if she held something rotten on her tongue, “in your cell.”

“Yes,” Felicity agreed softly. “I still don’t understand what the League wanted from me. Tommy seemed scared that they—they wanted me to work for them. To make me like him.”

“Scared?” Oliver scoffed under breath. Diggle reached over and clamped a firm hand around Oliver’s elbow, and Oliver shut up, jaws clamping tight.

Felicity closed her eyes for a second as if for patience. “I think he was supposed to be… softening me up? Or… I have… I have theories, but… it’s complicated…” She shook her head in frustration and started over. “He came to talk. Just to _talk_ to me, just conversations about, about anything. He brought cards and we’d play games, of all things. He even brought me _books_ , and we’d sit and just read on opposite sides of the room. I got the feeling he didn’t really interact much with the other League members, and he was supposedly in charge.”

“He was grooming you,” Oliver sniped.

Felicity turned a steady, peeved stare on him. “Maybe.” Oliver seemed caught off guard by the agreement, but Felicity continued. “But not just that. He was seeking me out. Lonely. I don’t know. He was so _cold_ and just, _empty_ at the beginning. And the more time he spent with me he just… he’d forget himself and it was like most of him was still dead and more of him was coming alive. I think it was—even then, it was something... “ she bit her lip, eyes unfocusing as she tried to describe her experiences. “He started insisting that I not get _comfortable_ with him. It was so strange and just, _maddening_. _He_ would get comfortable with me and forget to be intimidating or a total asshole, and then he’d find a reason to tell me not to trust him, or that I should still be afraid of him.”

Laurel’s face screwed up in confusion that Diggle shared. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Sighing, Felicity reached up and touched her glasses again as if to remind herself they were still there. “Looking back, it actually sort of does. I think that was when the programming started breaking down.”

Following her words, silence swept into the room like a vacuum that left that final sentence floating in the hollowed space, stark and heavy with its own gravity. John wasn’t even sure that any of them so much as  breathed as each in turn absorbed what Felicity had said.

 _I think that was when the programming started breaking down_.

Diggle swallowed hard, his mouth so dry his throat clicked. A feeling of large and looming doom pressed down on his shoulders, and fear sparked fresh in his heart.

Into the emptiness, Oliver stepped forward like he would fall if he didn’t. Hoarsely, he asked, “What?”

Felicity leveled him with a grave, level look. “I told you that it wasn’t simple.”

Oliver stared back at her, mouth open, poleaxed. At Felicity’s feet, Laurel stared up at her, dumbstruck, eyes wide, expression torn between hope and heartbreak.

Sucking in a fortifying breath, John raised one hand. “You’re telling me he was, what. Brainwashed?”

Switching her attention to him, Felicity chewed at her bottom lip. “In part? It was… I don’t, I still don’t know everything. _Tommy_ doesn’t know everything. We were—we were piecing it together still when we knew we had to get out.”

“I don’t buy it,” Oliver interjected harshly, voice low. Brows pulled together and eyes burning behind a damp sheen, he shook his head slowly. “I can’t—I want to but I _can’t_ … I can’t just believe it cuts that clean.”

Turning a look on Oliver that was equal parts pity and frustration, Felicity’s breath punched out in a sigh. “There is nothing about it that was _clean_ , Oliver.”

Oliver raised his hands as if trying to fill them with answers and sense out of the thin air. “He just—he just _visited_ you in the cell he threw you in, and all of a sudden he what, some spell breaks and it was _brainwashing_? That didn’t strike you as convenient, Felicity? It could just be some trick, another way to manipulate you! And it looks to me like it worked, with the way you’ve been covering for him and protecting him, and you brought him right into the center of our entire operation—”

“Oliver!” Felicity snapped incredulously. “Of course I thought I was just being _manipulated_! There were so many signs that he was unravelling and I was suspicious of every single one. He even dismissed being _brainwashed_ as ridiculous himself, because he was arguing against me looking to him for help or to be an ally.” She clawed her hands in frustration, leaning forward in her chair. “He was just so—so contradictory in everything he did and said. ‘Don’t trust me, Felicity’ and then turn around and fall asleep at the table in my cell like _he_ trusted _me_. ‘Be afraid of me’ and then he’d _protect_ me!”

“Protect you?” Laurel rejoined the conversation in a bewildered whisper.

Felicity looked at her and sort of shrank in on herself. “There was—a guard. He wanted to hurt me.” Felicity’s lip trembled as one hand lifted to rub at her breastbone, and Diggle’s heart felt like it might crack in two. “He tried. Tommy stopped him.” She paused, drew a long breath through her nose, and seemed to use it to stoke some fire inside her, spine drawing up straight and jaw squaring. The look in her eyes was suddenly… Diggle couldn’t think of any other word but _vicious_. “Definitively.”

Laurel’s eyes widened, her lips parting slowly. “He killed him?”

Felicity shook her head, and the coldest little smirk carved the corner of her mouth. “No.” Abruptly, she turned her head and pinned Oliver with a direct, confrontational stare. “He beat him bloody. Tommy chained him in a dark, filthy hole, and he cut pieces off of him to find out who helped him, until there was almost nothing left.”

Laurel looked sick, but Felicity… Felicity looked _satisfied_. Digg had seen that cold, blue flame in others’ eyes before, but in Felicity it was haunting, frightening.

Beside him, Oliver was trembling.

“He told you about torturing someone and not being sorry?” Felicity spoke only to Oliver, and Oliver’s chin jerked in a nod like it was pulled by a string. “ _That’s_ what he meant. _That_ is what Tommy doesn’t regret. And I don’t regret it either.”

Oliver stared at her, speechless, like he didn’t quite recognize her.

Seeing this, Felicity raised her chin. “Am I someone else now, too, Oliver? Am I not _your_ Felicity anymore?”

Oliver flinched. Swallowing hard, he shook his head. “No,” he answered, small and tangled up in a snarl of feeling. “No, that’s—I don’t— _no_. Felicity, never.”

Felicity held his gaze for another tautly-stretched moment before looking away, her chin stubborn and head shaking. Untethered from her gaze, Oliver seemed to deflate.

In the brief quiet, Laurel caught Diggle’s gaze and they shared a beat heavy with grim resignation.

“Is that when Tommy decided to help you escape?” The question pulled from Laurel’s lips like taffy, slow, almost reluctant. Her eyes returned to Felicity as hesitantly, as if afraid what new horrors the answer would bring but determined to know anyways.

Diggle folded his arms across his chest, waiting patiently.

“No,” Felicity finally said, quiet and suddenly tired. “But that’s when it started.” She took a deep breath then and set her shoulders, like she was bracing herself. “When he moved me out of my cell and into his quarters.”

Diggle’s head jerked up sharply, lips parting and eyes going wide. Laurel gaped up at Felicity in incomprehension. To the side, shoulders bunching up like a ridge of stone, Oliver seemed strangely… unsurprised.

But John hardly cared what Oliver felt right now.

Carefully banked embers sparked and crackled in Digg’s chest and he felt the heat of it spiral up his throat as he sucked a breath in through his teeth. “He _what_?”

“Why?” Laurel blurted, a nagging note in her voice pleading for Felicity to dispel a fear no one wanted to name.

Sighing, Felicity slipped fingers under her glasses to pinch and rub the bridge of her nose. “My cell wasn’t safe anymore. The guard—he was one of the door guards. Tommy realized he couldn’t trust the League people he was supposed to be commanding. His quarters were the only place only he could access.” She finally looked up, weariness flattening her expression as she focused on Laurel. “It was a repurposed apartment. I had my own room. When he was in the apartment, I could use the kitchen and the living room. I had my own bathroom.” Her gaze turned inwards and she bit her lip, her voice going vague as she murmured, “It locked on my side of the door.”

Cautiously, Laurel slipped her fingers into Felicity’s hands and, her focus still lost somewhere inside her, Felicity’s fingers tightened around Laurel’s. Abruptly, she blinked back to herself. She and Laurel shared some long, sober look, and Felicity kept hold of her hands.

Diggle’s heart beat heavily in his chest, and he wanted, in that moment, to hold Felicity to him as tight as he could.

It made him glad Laurel was the one in front of her instead.

Felicity continued as if she were telling this story to Laurel alone, and the rest of them just happened to be close enough to overhear. “Tommy’s programming was already at odds with how he was connecting with me before—before I was attacked. Realizing he wasn’t in control, that he couldn’t trust the others, that the stupid fucking _Code_ that had been drilled into him like the Ten Commandments maybe wasn’t so holy to them… realizing he wanted to keep me safe more than he wanted to keep me in the cell they made for me. All of that was just… overload. That’s when he started to break.”

“When the—when the brainwashing broke?” Laurel tried to clarify, her expression pained.

“Yes,” Felicity nodded slightly, but the flat line of her mouth offered no comfort. “But I also meant what I said. That’s when _Tommy_ started to break.” She pursed her lips together, the curve of her brows apologetic as Laurel’s eyes sheened with new tears. “He started to remember what they did to him. Things weren’t lining up in his head and he was looking at it all when he just took it for granted before…” One of her hands slipped free of Laurel’s, eyes unfocusing as her fingers pressed to her stomach. “It came out in nightmares. Torture and experimentation and Talia al Ghul twisting him up in knots. I heard him screaming one night down the hall…”

Her eyes slipped closed and she paled a little at the memory. Her voice was a ragged whisper as she went on, “After that, I watched him just… shatter.”

“Oh, god,” Laurel breathed, her free hand pressing hard against her mouth as the other clung to Felicity’s fingers.

Diggle’s pulse raced as he watched them. Felicity called Tommy broken. Laurel seemed to be hearing _wounded_. But John, with a sinking feeling, could only translate _broken_ and _wounded_ as _dangerous_.

“The final breaking point was when Talia came to the base.” Felicity said the words with a slow, grave quiet, as if a little afraid of the sound of them. She hunched a little in on herself, eyes a little wider behind her glasses.

Oliver uncrossed his arms and took a step forward, his expression shocked and fiercely protective. “She was _there_?”

Felicity cast him a hunted, tense look. “For a few days. Long enough to collect the pieces of the guard who’d broken their so-called ‘Code.’” She licked her lips, her eyes holding Oliver’s like she was daring him to look away. “Long enough to tell Tommy that if he didn’t hurry up and get me in line, she would do to me what she did to him.”

“Jesus Christ,” Roy murmured. Diggle couldn’t help but agree.

Oliver’s mouth fell open, his expression stricken.

Felicity grimaced. “He remembered enough by then to know exactly what that meant would happen to me. _That_ is when Tommy decided he had to get me out.” She turned and looked at Laurel then, her brows pinched together in an oddly pensive frown. “Don’t get me wrong. Tommy still ordered me kidnapped. He did all of those things. He was brainwashed or programmed or indoctrinated or—all of that. But some of it was still _Tommy_ , making choices about holding me captive like an animal.”

Looking nauseous, Laurel finally took her other hand from Felicity. Shakily, she got to her feet, two fingers pressed to her temple as she moved unsteadily to lean against one corner of the desk.

Tracking her with her gaze, Felicity went on, “But it does matter that when he was finally, really in _control_ of his choices, he made the right one. He…” she licked her lips nervously, as if not quite sure she wanted to share the next part. “He spent every night for a week outside the door of my room when I slept, armed, just… waiting. Terrified Talia would get impatient and come for me.”

Laurel met Felicity’s eye and they just looked at each other, Laurel not quite convinced, Felicity not exactly insisting on Tommy’s redemption.

Turning on his heel to look away from the two women, Oliver scoffed quietly.

Like a striking snake, Felicity’s head snapped around to glare at him, her body turning the chair to follow. “ _What_ , Oliver?”

“Nothing,” Oliver clipped sarcastically. “Just that you’re still leaving a lot out.”

“ _Excuse_ me?” Felicity gripped the arms of her chair tightly, leaning forward a little like she might rise out of it to go toe to toe with Oliver.

Feeling the powder keg around them all starting to spark dangerously, Digg tried to intervene, hands spreading at his waist. “Oliver—”

Ignoring him, Oliver turned back around, lancing Felicity with a heated glare. “I don’t know if it’s Stockholm syndrome or what, the way you keep editing the story to protect him.”

Felicity’s lip thinned, nostrils flaring as her jaw clenched around some retort. “That is not—”

“Please!” Oliver exploded, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, the broken skin of his knuckles mottling white and red. “He said it himself, Felicity! I can’t believe that between the two of you, _you’re_ the one that keeps lying to me and my murdering dead best friend is the one telling the truth!” He flung a hand out towards Laurel, and Felicity flinched. “You’ve got _her_ crying about _poor Tommy_ as if he’s just some victim—”

“ _Hey_!” Laurel strode up next to Felicity’s chair, her stance square and fists balled as Felicity stared at Oliver with a sneer. “Have you even been _listening_ to her, Oliver? They tortured him! Brainwashed him! He made _terrible_ choices but he was twisted and manipulated—”

“It’s not an excuse!” Oliver bellowed.

Laurel’s head snapped back, brows hiking up her forehead incredulously.

Diggle and Roy exchanged a concerned glance, and at Digg’s minute nod, Roy edged towards Oliver’s opposite side, putting him between them in case…

In case.

“There is _no excuse_ ,” Oliver continued, his hand slicing the air with the last two words. “For what he did.” He pinned his focus on Felicity like a knifepoint. “How can you forgive what he did?”

Felicity half rose out of her chair, eyes blazing furiously and arms finely trembling as they supported her. “What I do or don’t forgive is _none of your business_ —”

Oliver just scoffed again, head shaking in rejection, his volume rising on the tide of betrayal swelling in his voice. “How can you just forgive him for what he _made_ you do?”

Felicity blinked at him, freezing in her rise from the chair, bewildered. “ _Made_ me do?”

John stared at Oliver’s profile, lead sinking in his gut, praying Oliver wasn’t saying what John was afraid he was; afraid of the suspicion that had grown in him from the first time he noticed the way Tommy’s eyes trailed after Felicity’s every move being confirmed by Oliver’s next words.

He felt the slow curl of his own hands into fists and let his gaze drop again to the split and bloodied skin of Oliver’s knuckles.

Oliver swallowed thickly like his gorge rose in his throat. “He didn’t just _protect_ you, he didn’t put you in his own goddamn room to keep you _safe_.” Laurel glanced in horrified, dawning comprehension between Oliver and Felicity as Oliver went on, “Whatever you think you feel about him, Felicity, what he did to you was _wrong_ —”

“Oh my _god!_ ” Felicity interrupted in outrage. She pushed the rest of the way to her feet, her hands up in front of her like she could shove away Oliver’s reprehensible accusations. “I _told you_ that didn’t happen! I told you nothing happened when you asked me, point blank, and it _never happened_.”

“How can I trust that when you’ve lied to us since we found you in that motel bathroom?” Oliver asked in a hiss. “You say it didn’t happen but Tommy said it did, right before the coward ran _away_. He practically described you on your knees—”

“ _Shut up_!” Felicity shouted. Her face had gone red, her hands tight, shaking fists at her sides as tears glittered furiously in her eyes. “You shut your _mouth_ , Oliver Queen, because I have never wanted to hit you more in my life than right now and if you finish that sentence I swear to god that I will.”

In that exact moment, every older-brother protective instinct rising at the words “on your knees,” Diggle wasn’t sure he wanted to stop her.

Oliver’s teeth practically clicked shut, but his expression stayed anger tinged with pity. He drew a deep breath, chest expanding, before letting it go and saying with quiet steel. “They were his words, Felicity.”

At Felicity’s side, Laurel stood as if struck dumb, all expression drained from her face as if this, at last, was too much to hear, too much to bear.

Felicity rolled her eyes towards the ceiling, a soft, fractured little laugh slipping from her lips. “Oliver,” she sighed, returning his pity to him without mercy, “ _none_ of it happened the way he said. He twisted everything to be even worse than it already was. He was _lying_ to you.”

“Why?” Oliver barked, teeth baring, shoulders high, the cords of his neck standing out in tension. Diggle narrowed his eyes on him, trying to understand the manic edge to this denial; why Oliver would _want_ such a horrible thing to be true. “Tommy was the one who finally told me the _truth_ while you were covering it up like a dirty secret. Why would he lie about _that_?”

Her head still shaking back and forth, the pity in Felicity’s voice moved now into her eyes, turning the blue to cold, chipped ice. “Because he wanted you to kill him, Oliver. He thinks he deserves to die for what he’s done, so he provoked you, told you all the worst things you could imagine, and practically _begged_ for you to kill him.” She lifted her hands to indicate Oliver’s own, battered and bloodied and split open where they had rained hell and wrath on Tommy Merlyn. “And you nearly did.”

John glanced from one to the other, understanding dawning. This was why Oliver so badly needed Tommy to be guilty of some unforgivable sin; for the little drops of blood dried in arcs on the cement floor to belong to a monster, and not a friend.

Oliver stared at her with wide eyes, his throat bobbing with a hard swallow as his head began to shake back and forth. Slowly, his fingers straightened and he looked down at his hands. They shook slightly. “No.”

“Yeah.” Felicity nodded, slow and emphatic. “He knew—he knew exactly how you would blow up.” Eyes rolling heavenward, she huffed a humorless laugh. “Honestly, so did I. Difference is Tommy _wanted_ this, I just—” she swallowed a thickness that rose in her throat, tried again. “ _This_ is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you all of this.” She flopped her hands in a gesture that encompassed the entire scene. “All of this. I just didn’t—everything has been _so much_ and I just couldn’t…”

Diggle took a step towards her before he could stop himself, but Felicity’s skittish glance at the movement rooted him like chains. His heart ached for her, but he took a long, low breath and wrestled himself under control.

“I deserved to know.” It came out gravelly and fractured as Oliver stared at his hands, flexing the fingers as if to feel the split skin stretch and pinch. Finally he raised his head, and when he looked at Felicity the anger that had blazed in him since John had arrived at the foundry had banked to a smolder. Now, he looked… tired. Tired and heartbroken. “You let me think…” His chin trembled and the inhalation he he drew shuddered. “You _knew_ when I saw him, that I…”

Felicity flinched from the tears that filmed Oliver’s eyes, her own spilling over down reddened cheeks.

“I deserved to _know_ ,” Oliver repeated, and let his hands hang dead at his sides.

Felicity just bit down hard on her bottom lip and looked away.

Shifting his weight uncomfortably from one foot to to the other, Roy caught Diggle’s eye and pulled an awkward face. Digg just sighed.

“We all did.” Weary, faintly resentful, Laurel spoke up, and Diggle realized that for a moment, they had all forgotten her. She looked at each of them in turn as they all turned their attention to her. “But that’s how this works, right? Some ugly truth that doesn’t just affect one of you but catches everyone around you in the blast radius, but you act like it’s your own private pain and nobody else deserves to see.” She shook her head, and if the anger in Oliver’s eyes had banked to embers, Laurel’s had collapsed to ash. “I’m tired of it. We _all_ deserved to know.”

Wrapping her arms tightly across her stomach, Felicity turned to the other woman with naked regret on her face. “Laurel… I’m—I’m sorry. I just… I didn’t think—”

“Of course not,” Laurel interrupted brusquely, her hands slicing dismissively through Felicity’s stumbling words. “Honestly, I’m not even sure you have anything to apologize for.” She smiled tightly, some regret of her own flickering at its fine edges. “At least not to me.”

Felicity tucked her lips like she didn’t quite agree, but Laurel had turned her attention to Oliver. She seemed to expect him to say something, to make some choice.

He stood as if hollowed out and said nothing. After a moment, Laurel’s shoulders sagged; she seemed disappointed, but not surprised.

“Right,” she whispered hoarsely, blinking away a fresh shine of tears. One hand dipped into her jacket pocket and fished out a set of keys. “Like I said. I’m tired.” She swept one more glance around the circle of faces and stepped towards the door. “I’m also done.”

Felicity and Oliver stood silent and blasted as Laurel moved to leave, and concern flared like acid in Diggle’s gut. He intercepted Laurel’s path to the door and reached gently to circle her arm in one hand. “Laurel, wait.”

She paused unhappily, the cut of her jaw sharp and expression flat as stone as she looked down at his hand before meeting his eyes.

Message received, John released her arm and raised both hands in peace, but still didn’t move out of her way. “I just don’t think you should go. We need to figure out what to do about Tommy. He’s out there somewhere, and we don’t know if he’s taking off for good or might turn up again, or what shape he’ll be in if he does.” Laurel’s stony expression went mulish, but John continued with a patient sigh. “I know this is hard to hear, but with everything Merlyn’s been through, he could be dangerous.”

“I can take care of myself,” Laurel snapped coldly.

“I believe you,” Digg agreed, remembering all too well how Laurel had taken care of herself when Sebastian Blood had had her kidnapped. There weren’t many hands in this basement that could be truly considered clean. “All the same. You two have history.”

Laurel scoffed a cynical laugh, jingling her keys restlessly. “Look, if he shows up at my door I promise to call for backup, alright?” Digg canted his head to the side in assent despite the sarcasm, but she just pursed her lips at him pityingly. “But if you think that of all places, he’s going to come running to _me_?” She shook her head minutely. “You didn’t just hear the same story I did.”

She took off with no further goodbyes, and Diggle watched her go with the sinking feeling she might well be right, the door pulling shut behind her with a more than physical weight.

Behind him, a sudden four-note digital tone erupted loudly into the air, repeating over and over as Roy swore. John turned with a furrowed brow just as Roy fumbled his cell phone from his back pocket, the stain of his cheeks nearly matching the red of his ubiquitous hoodie.

As if too wrung out to be more than confused, Felicity stared at him, frowning. “Is that… is that the Kim Possible alert?”

“Shut up,” Roy muttered reflexively, embarrassed, then, when Felicity looked hurt, he grimaced. “It’s Sin. She set the text tone and I keep forgetting to change it.”

Felicity’s frown only deepened. “Sin—Sara’s Sin?”

“Uh…” Roy dragged out the sound, eyes flicking from Digg to Oliver as his finger hovered over the phone screen. “Yeah?”

With a sigh, Diggle intervened and moved closer to explain, “Sin helped us out with a thing in the Glades about a month ago. She’s not aware of the whole op, but she knows about Roy and has been a sort of point of contact for shit stirring on the streets.”

With a deep breath, Felicity visibly tried to pull herself together, seeming to grasp onto the subject of Arrow work like a lifeline away from the emotional swamp they’d all spent the last hour drowning in. “What happened?”

Unexpectedly, it was Oliver who answered her, tired and a little distant. “There was a human trafficking ring snatching homeless kids and sex workers from the Glades. Sin knew some of the folks who went missing, turned us onto it.” He looked up at her, too much emotion in his eyes to be readable. “We couldn’t just stop. Not even… not even without you.”

They stared at each other for a beat until, finally, Felicity said, “Good.”

“Thank fucking Christ,” Roy mumbled before raising his head from his phone with an unusually excited air. “Sin spotted that last guy from the ring who got away at some shitty dive bar down on Market. I’m gonna suit up.”

As if waking from a dream, Felicity blinked rapidly and took a little gasp of air. “Oh. Okay. Yeah, I’ll, uh. I’ll boot up systems and get on comms.”

Already halfway to the gear racks, Roy turned around with an awkward squint. “Uhhh, no offense, but is that a good idea?”

“No,” Oliver answered for her, pulling himself to his full height and flexing his wrists. “We can handle this, Felicity. It’s too soon.”

Storm clouds darkening her expression, Felicity jutted her chin forward. “Excuse me?”

“Actually,” John cut in, thinning patience matching the thinning edge in his tone as he stepped between them. “Let me just head this unnecessary bit of theatre off at the pass.” He raised his eyebrows and looked from one to the other, circling a finger between them. “Neither of you is going.”

Felicity scoffed, affronted, and Oliver took his turn with the mulish chin-thrust.

“Like hell I’m not. Roy can’t go after this guy without backup.”

Shooting Oliver a nasty look, Felicity added, “And if _he’s_ going, I’m not sitting out either.”

Diggle raised one hand and snapped it into a fist, jaw clenching as he very deliberately stepped on his temper. “Like I said, _neither_ of you is going.” He pointed one finger at Oliver first. “Roy _will_ have backup, because I’ll follow in the van and run comms.” He turned the finger on Felicity. “This is literally the last thing you want to hear, I know, but it’s me saying it and you know I won’t bullshit you. Oliver’s right.” She looked slapped, and Digg gentled his tone, stepping closer to her and lifting his hands very carefully before settling them on her shoulders. He squeezed, and she practically pouted up at him. “It’s too soon. At least tonight. You just relived some nasty shit, Felicity, and it’s been a hellish day. You’re raw, and I want you to be actually _ready_ when you get back in that chair and start pulling all our strings again, alright?”

She looked away, and he could see how much being benched salted her wounds.

He didn’t like it, but sometimes a big brother’s role was deliverer of tough love and unvarnished truth. “Alright?” he insisted.

With a long sigh, she nodded. “Okay. But Digg,” she lifted her head again and met his eye, serious and sure. “I will be ready soon. And I won’t take no for an answer again.”

He offered her a small smile and squeezed her shoulders one more time. “Understood.”

All too briefly, she tilted her head to press his fingers between her cheek and shoulder before slipping from under his grip, and John stepped back with a warm, tender ache in his chest.

Bracing himself with a deep breath, he turned on Oliver and folded his arms tight. “I know you know we got this. We don’t need you, and you’re in rough shape, Oliver.” Oliver thinned his lips unhappily, but didn’t disagree, and Digg nodded in satisfaction. “Good. The only job you’ve got tonight is for the two of you to go home and get some damn sleep, got it?”

Oliver sighed and looked at Felicity, who stiffened.

“Wait. Go home—together?” Apprehensively, she chewed at her bottom lip.

Oliver frowned. “Of course. Where else—?” He cut himself off with raised brows and a stony expression. “Absolutely not. You are not going back there on your own, not _tonight_ , Felicity.”

Felicity stared at him, seeming to decide between arguments. “After everything—I’m supposed to just keep borrowing your bed?”

“Yes,” Oliver said emphatically. “At least for now.”

Turning her head head away, Felicity sucked a breath through her open mouth to push back, but Oliver stopped her with a raised hand.

“Just—Just don’t fight me on this _one thing_ , Felicity,” Oliver pleaded grimly. “Not tonight. Not after everything we’ve all said, not when he’s… when he’s god knows where out there, in god know’s what shape.”

Felicity pinned him with another look that accused him about the shape Tommy was in, but this one lacked much of the previous heat.

Acknowledging what went unsaid with a tip of his head, OIiver softened his tone. “It’s a lot to process, Felicity. I just… let me know tonight where you are. That you’re here. That you’re safe. From everything.”

Arms wrapped around herself tightly, Felicity looked up at him over her glasses for a long moment, her eyes glittering wet anew. Finally, tensely, she nodded. Abruptly, she turned on her heel and strode for the staircase leading up to the club as if she might any moment break into a run.

“Felicity!” Oliver called after her, bewildered and clipped. She stopped with her hand on the rail and one foot on the first step. “Where are you going?”

Without turning back to look at him she said in a voice small and clenched as a fist, “I need some air. Before we go.”

Oliver took a step towards her like he’d follow, and Digg caught him by the shoulder, stopping him as Felicity hurried up the rest of the stairs and through the door. “Let her go, man. Just let her breathe for a minute.”

Oliver stared after her in consternation for a long moment, then, when Diggle dropped his hand, he turned his head and asked, “How are you not pissed?” He shook his head, brows knotted together over the bridge of his nose. “The lies she told us… what Tommy did. It’s like it doesn’t even touch you.”

Scoffing incredulously, John shook his head at Oliver. “You think I’m not pissed? That I don’t care about everything we just heard? Hell, man.” Digg bracketed his hips with his hands and ran his tongue over his teeth under his lips. “I was in that base, Oliver. I saw the damn hole your boy threw her in. It was designed from top to bottom to strip Felicity— _our_ Felicity, bright and gorgeous and every fucking color in the world in one tiny human package—to strip her of just… everything. They were taking her humanity from her. Hell yeah, I’m pissed. I’m fucking _furious_.”

Oliver just stared at him like he didn’t understand.

For one second, Diggle relaxed the fist in his chest, the one with its tight, controlling grip on his emotions, his reactions. He let rage boil in his gut, sizzle under his skin as he remembered those sterile white walls and the furniture bolted to the floor. Let the horror hollow out his heart and make black holes of his eyes as he recalled the hunch of Felicity’s shoulders, the careful way she clocked everyone’s proximity to her when she had always been all easy, open affection, before anyone had taught her the hard way how to wear fear like perfume.

In that second, Oliver saw it all in John’s face, and his accusing bewilderment faded to a simpler confusion, his lips parting, at a loss.

He held Oliver’s eyes steadily, unflinchingly, and went on, “I’m _furious_ , Oliver. But not with her. Never with her.” Oliver’s head began to shake back and forth, but Digg twitched his eyebrows up in censure. “Doesn’t mean I approve of the way she handled it. Doesn’t mean it was right, or healthy, or fair to us, least of all you. Hell, not even fair to Merlyn. But she’s in some major pain, man. People do a lot of dumb shit when they’re hurting.”

Oliver held his gaze for a moment more as if trying to hold onto his own anger, his own arguments, before finally looking down in surrender. “I don’t know how to do this.”

Inhaling shakily, Digg wound back all that burning ugliness like unspooled thread, stowing it away until it could be safely unpacked again. Clasping Oliver’s shoulder briskly, he snorted. “Hell, man. Nobody really does. But if any of us had abandoned you or held a grudge over all the dumb, unhealthy shit you pulled when you first got home, you’d be real damn short on friends. Or dead.”

Eyes still on the floor, Oliver quirked one brow, the corner of his mouth twisting. It was almost a smile.

Sighing deeply, Digg squeezed Oliver’s shoulder and let go. “She needs you. Needs all of us. But you’re the one she’s riding home with tonight. Don’t be less than she deserves, alright?”

Oliver just nodded pensively.

“Hey,” Roy called from the lockers. “You coming or what? This jackass could move any time and I don’t like leaving Sin to play watchdog.”

Diggle turned and found him suited up, a nightmare of red leather and buckles with bow in hand. He hoped the kid couldn’t tell how much John thought his costume looked stupid. “Yeah, give me a minute. Go gear up the van and I’ll be right out.”

Roy snapped him a sloppy, sarcastic salute and left.

Rolling his eyes towards the ceiling, John muttered, “I’m gonna enjoy kicking his ass and calling it training later.”

Oliver snorted in amusement, and the two shared a wry smile.

“I better make sure he doesn’t die. Go get our girl.” John turned away and strode for the gun locker.

“Text me when it’s done,” Oliver called after him.

Digg waved a hand over his shoulder. “Got it.”

“And call me if things go sideways!”

“Good _night_ , Oliver!”

He popped a fresh clip into his favorite sidearm as he listened to Oliver’s boots beat a path up the stairs, and sent up a silent prayer that they would _all_ make it through the night.

Even Tommy, wherever he was.

—

The drive home was quiet.

The storm had collapsed into a rumble and rain, the dark roof of clouds pressing low and heavy as a thin, steady drizzle showered down on the city. The gritty wash of rainwet roads beneath the tires was underpinned by the steady swipe of the windshield wipers, a swaddling hush that filled the interior of the car so no words were dragged into the emptiness.

Oliver kept his gaze trained on the road, his eyes aching and the vise of a headache tightening around his skull. His lips felt glued together, but he felt no urge to part them.

What would he say?

There was only hollowness in his chest, and in his head half-thoughts flew and flitted in collapsing arcs like arrows fired too short.

He could glimpse the shadowed shape of Felicity from the corner of his eye, her face turned always to the window as she curled in the seat, knees up and hands making twists of the seatbelt. The silence that lay between them was one of exhaustion, burnt out of all that might be left to say to each other.

They made their way home as if they were strangers who were merely headed in the same direction.

Only flickers lighting in his chest, Oliver couldn’t find it in himself to be bothered by it.

When they reached the apartment, they left the car and headed upstairs with the quiet unbroken. It lasted, however, only so far as the living room.

Oliver turned all the locks by habit, but tested and double-checked them with a grim set to his mouth and a betraying quiver in his lower lip.

He turned from the door and drifted into the middle of the living area. One hand rose thoughtlessly to rest against the back of the plaid armchair, his palm sliding back and forth across the threadbare softness of the upholstery as he stared blindly into the room.

To his left, Felicity floated about the kitchen like a ghost, the only sign of her presence the heavy pull of the refrigerator door; the soft, dry click of a closing cabinet; a white-noise stop-start as the faucet flowed and shut off.

He didn’t know he was going to speak until he’d drawn the breath into his lungs, his lips feeling foreign and clumsy as they shaped the simple words: “I’ll shower first.”

He blinked twice, eyes focusing as he turned to find Felicity by the fridge. She hunched in on herself, hands full and clutching an apple, a jar of peanut butter, a small knife, and a bottle of water to her chest.

She looked back at him for an awkwardly long beat as if having to translate his short declaration into some kind of meaning. Finally, just as softly as he had spoken, she answered, “Okay.”

Just that.

Four whole words between them, and still the air in here felt too thick with them.

The haste of his stride into the dark past the screen partition and through the bathroom door felt far too much like fleeing.

Oliver closed the door as carefully and gently as he could manage, his fingers curled precisely around the knob as the latch clicked softly in place. After a moment’s hesitation, he depressed the lock button and backed up to the toilet without looking.

He sat on the closed lid and, with deliberate focus, removed his shoes and socks, lining them up neatly against the wall under the towel rack. His shirt came off next, sloppily folded and deposited by his boots.

Finally, he rose and turned to face the little sink and vanity, avoiding his reflection in the mirror that hung above it.

He turned on the tap and bent over the sink, the water filling his cupped hands and flowing through and over his fingers. He felt the sting of it on his knuckles, the skin split, the crusting blood cracking with prickling pain.

The water flowing into the basin tinged the faintest pink, and for a moment, Oliver’s vision slid sideways—

_—The gritty concrete floor, mottled gray and scuffed dark; bright, vivid red splashing across it in a thin arc—_

_—his fist striking Tommy’s face again, the blunt impact, the sharp crack of bone against bone—_

_—the same bright, vivid red splashed across his knuckles, running in a thick line from the corner of Tommy’s mouth, painting his teeth—_

_—Tommy’s face beneath him, mouth open, breath shallow through those red teeth, his eyes staring up at Oliver so perfectly focused, blue and bright and—relieved—_

_—and Oliver’s fist knocking Tommy’s head to the side again—_

Water splashed wildly as Oliver’s knees buckled, bile splashing against the backs of his gritted teeth as his hands slipped at the edges of the counter, caught his weight, arms shaking as he stared at the water flowing down the drain until it ran clear.

Breath hissing through his teeth, Oliver battled back the nausea even as his vision clouded and blurred.

“Fuck,” he whispered, straightening.

Blind, he turned to the shower and reached into the tub to blast the hot water, the spray overhead stuttering before streaming steady.

“Fuck,” Oliver exhaled again as his knees gave out.

He crashed hard against the tiled floor, hands catching at the smooth lip of the tub even as his weight bore him down, legs folding beneath him, weak and senseless.

He stared into the growing steam in the tub as salt spilled hot down cheeks gone cold.

All at once, he began to shake. Fine tremors began in the fingers gripping tight to the tub’s edge, the quaking traveling up his arms, into his chest, until it felt as if his soul would rattle loose from his bones.

The first sob broke free from his throat like a bullet shattering glass. The second seemed to rip up all the way from his gut, pulling raw and bloody at his stomach, shredding through his chest on the way out.

Oliver bent until his forehead pressed against the warming porcelain of the tub, prying free one hand to muffle against his mouth.

Steam fogged through the room, the shower streaming relentlessly on, and Oliver curled on the floor and wept.

—

On the other side of the door, the single-bulb lamp on the bedside crate bathing the bedroom in dim, warm orange light, Felicity sat atop the covers in the middle of the bed. She had changed into her comfiest pajama set, soft, oft-washed cotton in a deep purple, little white stars speckling from collar to pants hem. Her hair was loose, glasses removed and folded neatly by the base of the lamp.

With single-minded focus, she carved the apple in her hands into careful, even slices, slathering them thoroughly in peanut butter before popping each crisp, flavorful piece into her mouth, savoring the crunch and the bright, acidic juice cutting through the thick, nutty stickiness.

Mechanically, she ate each one until none were left; she tasted each sweet, filling bite, closing her eyes and narrowing all her concentration on the simple pleasure.

If she focused hard enough, she imagined, the room around her would fade to nothing; just low light behind her eyelids, and the sussorous hush of the shower running.

But though the apple was sweet and the peanut butter rich, the cloth against her skin a comfort that breathed the scent of _home_ , though the bathroom door and half a room lay between them, Oliver’s wrenching sobs hit her each like a fist to the gut, until eventually all she tasted was salt.

—

Hours later, darkness and silence blanketed the apartment.

Felicity lay in Oliver’s bed beneath the covers, curled on her side with her face pressed into the pillow. She twitched and jerked in her sleep, limbs heavy between the sheets.

The thinnest light filtered blue and orange from the window at the front of the apartment, cut sharply by the edge of the partition, diffused into thicker shadows by the paper screening.

Rolling onto her back, Felicity’s eyes opened with a thin gasp, gaze darting rapidly across the shrouded, distance-blurred ceiling as her brows pulled together.

What had woken her?

Eyes squeezing closed, she released her breath in a long sigh and dragged one hand over her face.

Fingertips pressed against her forehead, Felicity tried to will herself back to sleep.

“Felicity.”

The whisper was sharp and sudden as the cut of a blade, raising every hair on Felicity’s body as she froze against the mattress. Her breath stuttered to a stop in her throat, the hand against her face beginning to shake.

Long, cool fingers circled her wrist loosely, pulling her hand from her face before slipping away; a ghost of a touch.

“Felicity. Open your eyes.”

“You can’t be here,” Felicity whispered back first, before finally, reluctantly opening her eyes.

Above her, bathed in darkness and discolored, faded light, Tommy stood by the side of the bed.

He was dressed, improbably, as Felicity had seen him so many times sauntering through the door of her cell, in a pale blue dress shirt and simple slacks.

She stared up at him, stricken, and as he tilted his head to the side, his lips curving in a faint, hollow smile, dread thickened the blood in Felicity’s veins, her heart thudding harder for the effort.

“This isn’t right,” Felicity breathed, her eyes frozen on the strange _wrongness_ of his face.

“Shh,” Tommy put a finger to his lips, and the movement struck Felicity as unnatural, stiff and jerky. “You’ll wake Oliver.”

The dread weighing like a stone in Felicity’s chest dissolved into the acid-wash of fear, and she pushed onto her elbows. “You can’t _be_ here.”

Striking fast with that uncanny, alien manner, Tommy’s hand pressed against her collarbone, bearing her back down to the mattress. His fingers slid soft and gentle against the skin of her neck until he bracketed her throat, and then he began to _press_.

Her hands flew up to pull at his wrist, eyes widening in fear and confusion. “ _Tommy_.”

That small, slow smile grew, horrible and, as it stretched his lips across his teeth, _familiar_.

Bland.

Empty.

 _Cruel_.

“We have to finish what we started, Felicity,” Tommy said, smiling and calm and hollow. In another jerky motion, he raised his free hand and the dim light glinted on the edge of a blade. “We’re out of time.”

“Tommy,” Felicity gasped around the pressure on her throat. “ _Please_.”

The light glimmered on the edge of the knife again—and _again_ , on a thin, wickedly-curved fishhook that pierced the flesh of Tommy’s forearm, blood blooming in spreading red against the blue of his shirtsleeve.

A rivulet of dark, wet blood ran down the wrist pinning Felicity by the neck, dripping hot against her skin as she noticed another hook pierced in that forearm too. Eyes darting, she found another in his left shoulder. His right. His smile stretched and stretched until it split at the corners, blood running down his face to drip from his chin in dark, macabre drops down his shirtfront. His eyes smiled emptily down at her, but pain pinched at their corners, terror broadening the whites.

The light caught again, almost invisible, on thin clear line leading from the hooks punched through Tommy’s flesh, running up, up to the ceiling.

Mouth open, gulping desperately for air as Tommy lurchingly lowered the knife towards her chest, Felicity followed the glimmering fishing line where it knotted above their heads, ran along the ceiling, then down again by the bathroom door—

—where it twined around long, slender brown fingers tipped in black-lacquered, pointed nails.

Talia stood there, grinning smug and vicious as she tugged and loosed the lines in her fist and Tommy’s knifepoint met the skin of Felicity’s chest and pressed and pressed and _pressed_ and carved, two deep, bloody curves on her sternum that met in a point—

Felicity bolted upright in bed with a strangling gasp, her clothes and hair sticking to her skin with sweat as she scrabbled at the buttons of her top, pulling the top three loose as she slapped and patted at smooth, unbroken skin.

No blood.

No raggedly-carved heart.

Sucking in thready, sobbing breaths, Felicity pulled her knees tight against her stomach and sat, shaking, her eyes casting wildly around the dark room.

Empty.

She was alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Incredible thanks as always to always_a_queen, ohemgeeitscoley, and StoriesOfImagination. Couldn't do this without them.


	7. Friend, Make Sense of Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's that time again! The time for me to apologize for the obscenely long wait between chapters. Life happened, friends, and it happened a lot and not entirely gently. However, we are here for a story of an entirely different kind, so please enjoy the following 38 pages of broken people holding their pieces together.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: Body Horror, PTSD, Referenced Torture, Brief Nazi Mentions, Brief Slurs

It took him two days to apologize.

Two days in which Oliver and Felicity orbited around each other like estranged satellites, glances cutting just to the side, stiff words transmitted across distances that felt uncrossable, drawn and repelled by an inescapable gravity. They spoke to each other only as necessary, stilted and awkward, wary and uncertain. It even infected the way he interacted with Diggle and Roy, short, frustrating text messages and missed calls.

They stayed clear of the foundry as if waiting to let the bad air clear out of it.

It made for a strained atmosphere at home as they tried to coexist in a too-small space as if they each occupied it alone.

Oliver imagined it was easier to ignore someone when you didn’t share a bathroom, when the kitchen wasn’t too cramped to avoid bumping elbows at meal prep, when the couch where he slept wasn’t where she preferred to sit and craft her cover story on her laptop. A folding screen wasn’t a wall, and rice paper was far from soundproof at night.

It chewed at Oliver’s insides to lie on the couch in the dark as if he couldn’t hear Felicity’s restless tossing and inevitable gasping, whimpering cries when the nightmares came for her, but he couldn’t couldn’t go to her uninvited. There was a gulf between them that had yet to be bridged, and the nightmares kept good company with the angry things left unsaid in the chasm.

It wasn’t just the awkwardness and lingering hurt that kept him quiet in the darkness. He remembered his own early days back from the island, and the nightmares that had flooded in with the shock of adjusting. As much as part of him might have desperately wanted to be held, to be comforted, to be promised he was home, _he was home_ … There had been a greater part wounded and snarling and curled around his scars, unwilling to so much as let others see the evidence of his damage.

So much of Felicity’s anger and pride since her homecoming had sparked all too familiarly against Oliver’s carefully-honed defenses. He couldn’t say if she wanted to be left alone, or if she wanted to be held. So he waited, and hoped he was giving her space instead of isolating her.

And if he was honest… he couldn’t reach out to her until he was sure his anger at her omissions wouldn’t ruin any comfort he might offer.

The first day, every breath she took in his hearing stirred sparks in his gut, clenched his jaw and ground his teeth.

_How could she? How dare she? How could she?_

But the seething hurt gradually gave way, and the question followed: how could _he_?

In his outrage and pain, he had attacked Felicity at her most vulnerable. He’d believed her assaulted, and thrown it in her face, made of that horror a knife to slide between her ribs.

She had been wrong to lie to him. But so had he been wrong to hurt her for it.

It had taken him most of the second day to gradually accept that both of these were true at the same time. Now, it was in his hands to do something about it.

Oliver stepped back into the apartment, slipping his cell phone back into his pocket as he carefully latched the door closed.

From her cross legged perch on the couch, Felicity looked up from her laptop, body held wary, waiting, her expression guarded. He felt her eyes on his back as he methodically turned the locks, and a cold, slithering voice in his head asked how like Tommy he looked to her in the action.

“Was that Digg?” Felicity asked when he turned around, eyes dropping pointedly to the pocket he’d returned his phone to.

He nodded. “All quiet. Just checking in.”

Her lips thinned for a moment as if she wanted to say something more, but she only huffed a little puff of air through her nose and turned her attention pointedly back to her computer. In fitted blue jeans and drowning in an unseasonably enormous sweatshirt, she looked impossibly small, but fiercer even than that.

Heart squeezing like a fist, Oliver swallowed hard and asked in a voice that felt thread-thin, “How’s the cover coming along?”

She sighed, fingers stilling on her keyboard. “Just putting on the finishing touches. By the time the cops go looking tomorrow morning, they’ll find record of me having checked myself into in-patient care at Rosegarden Center for Mind and Body in Clarence, California, for the last three months. If they get a warrant for some reason, I should have a digital file with notes from one of their psychiatrists who just so happens to have left the country for a sabbatical last Tuesday. Anxiety and PTSD.” Her mouth curved down in a muppet-like frown, eyebrows hiking humorlessly. “Not exactly a stretch, all things considered.”

Oliver’s chest ached at the grim determination with which she recited the lie. It would be all too easy for the SCPD to buy her story and close her Missing Persons file. Mental health services in the city had both vastly expanded and been wildly overburdened in the last year. Thousands of citizens had gone missing after the previous spring, and again following Slade’s siege; often enough, they turned up again after having fled the city, some even walking away from their homes and lives, dropping everything as the trauma overwhelmed them.

Felicity would be just another survivor who bolted from the city like a diver kicking for the surface.

“At least since I was still technically unemployed, I don’t have to make work excuses too,” she muttered, sighing.

Oliver’s chin dropped and he tried to exhale some of the tightness in his chest. He raised his head again, swallowing the lump in his throat to say, low and rasping, “I’m sorry.”

Fingers resuming their rapid dance across the keys, Felicity frowned at the laptop screen. “I appreciate that, I guess, but I wholeheartedly blame Isabel Rochev for that one.” She scrunched up her nose and curled her upper lip. “Should’ve backed up and rolled over her again.”

“No,” Oliver pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling his meaning and his words slipping from his fingertips. “I mean I’m _sorry_.”

The typing faltered. Stopped.

Oliver stared at his shoes, hand lowering to his side, callused finger rasping against callused thumb. “I was angry. And… hurting. If I’m honest, I still am. I’m… working on it. But it’s no excuse for the way I treated you. You didn’t deserve that.”

There was nothing but quiet in the breaths after his words ran out, and at last, he lifted his head.

Felicity was just staring at him, and for a moment panic scrabbled with needle-claws under Oliver’s sternum, until he read the surprise in her eyes, watched it thaw and melt slow as ice, beading wet on her lashes.

Her bottom lip tucked between her teeth for a moment, and she cleared her throat. “Thank you,” she said at last, her voice small and tight as if squeezed through a pinhole.

Relief spread cool through his chest, releasing a sigh as he dipped his head and attempted a smile.

“I’m sorry, too,” Felicity blurted suddenly, her face screwing up in sudden pain. “I w—I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I just, I wanted… I was scared…” she squeezed her eyes shut and sucked in a deep breath. Opening them again, she levelled him with a solemn stare. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you, but I know I did. And I’m sorry, Oliver.”

All at once, the tears on her lashes spilled over and Felicity’s faced scrunched in angry pout as she swiped them from her cheeks. The motion jostled the laptop on her knees, and she made a desperate grab for it.

Oliver crossed quickly to catch the back of it against his broad palm, gently taking it from her and setting it on the coffee table. She looked up at him, head craning back, and he held out both hands to her.

Hesitating only a moment, she slipped her fingers into his and unfolded her legs so he could pull her carefully to her feet.

There was little space between the chair, coffee table, and couch, and even less between Oliver and Felicity as they stood, but he kept loose hold of her warm, small hands, and though she couldn't seem to raise her eyes higher than his collarbone, she didn’t pull away, didn’t lean back from him uncomfortably.

Sliding his hands beneath her forearms for a steadier grasp, Oliver tipped his head in an attempt to catch her eye. “Felicity. I don’t want to stay angry. I don’t want… this cloud of hurt about Tommy to get in the way of everything else.” He gently squeezed her elbows, and she met his eye at last. “Do you realize how wrong everything was here without you?”

She blinked, seeming startled, unsure.

Oliver’s lips pulled and stitched at a smile, faltering, unraveling, but felt. “I just want to be happy you’re home. That you’re safe again. By my—by our sides.”

Eyebrows knit uncertainly, Felicity licked her lips. “I do, too. I’m trying. I’m just…” Her eyes rolled toward the ceiling, shining bright and damp again, her mouth a hard line even as her chin trembled. Her hands gripped at Oliver’s own forearms as if keeping herself anchored. “I am _so mad_. About so much. I want—I want to just be _home_ and I want to feel like I’m _me_ again. But it comes out of nowhere and everywhere and I’m just _burning_ with it and, I…” she trailed off and sucked in a drowning gasp, eyes sliding closed again. She went on again in a whisper-thin confession. “I’m scared it’s going to burn me up so the anger and the scars are all that’s left.”

Her fears struck him like arrows, and he could have stumbled from the impact of the resonance. Swallowing hard, he let his hands rise to her shoulders. “Felicity,” he breathed beseechingly. “There is no possible scenario where that happens.” She scowled at him through her tears, but he just shook his head. “I mean it. Not to you. I’ve felt the same thing, more times than I ever want to count. But I’m still here. The anger doesn’t ever go away, not completely. But you learn how to use it. You learn how to live again.” He squeezed her shoulders. “I learned the hard way, it helps if you don’t do it alone.”

Her scowl softened as she looked at him, and finally she let her eyes close and loosed a long, low breath.

Wetting his lips, Oliver rubbed his thumbs against the tops of her shoulders and began uncertainly, “Felicity…” she opened her eyes and looked at him quizzically. “Are we going to be okay? You and me?”

She searched his eyes for one heartbeat, two. Then, instead of answering, she threw her arms around his waist and fell against his chest, face burying against his thudding heartbeat.

Breath catching, Oliver circled his arms around her with utmost care, one hand cradling the back of her head. He closed his eyes and dropped his mouth against her hair, and for as long as she let him, he held her.

—

“Wow. That’s so awkward, I’m sorry.”

Seated beneath an umbrella across from Lyla at a table in the corner of her favorite bistro’s patio, the sun high and bright in the clear blue sky, Felicity grimaced agreement and toyed with the straw in her glass of soda. “I’m trying not to take it personally how easily so many people believed I voluntarily committed myself for a mental breakdown for the last few months.” She met Lyla’s sympathetic gaze and wrinkled her nose. “It would have been nice if my landlord had looked even a _little_ surprised.”

Laughing a little, Lyla reached across the table and patted Felicity’s hand kindly. “Sweetheart, in this city? Nothing surprises anybody anymore.”

Felicity could only tip her head to one side in concession of the point, even if it wasn’t especially comforting.

Seeing this, Lyla leaned back in her chair and, hands settling on the crown of her belly, offered Felicity a wry smile. “At least Captain Lance knows the truth?” Felicity shrugged and stirred her straw amongst the ice cubes in her glass. Lyla sighed. “We all do things that suck sometimes. For me, these days, it’s waddling everywhere I go, peeing five hundred times a day, and wearing repurposed tents.”

She plucked at the loose drape of cranberry-colored fabric spilling down her front and made a face, at which Felicity couldn’t help a little smile. The knee-length loose tee shirt dress looked lovely on her, but it _was_ undeniably tent-like.

“We do the uncomfortable shit that doesn’t always make us look good but keeps everything running underneath everyone’s noses,” Lyla went on. She caught Felicity’s eye and winked. “It’s part of what makes us heroes.”

Felicity snorted and propped her elbows on the table as she sipped at her soda.

Lyla’s expression pinched in a thoughtful moue, and she put her head to one side to contemplate Felicity’s glum expression. “You _do_ realize you’re a hero, Felicity.” Felicity met her eyes in surprise, lips still pursed around her straw. “Don’t you?”

 _Heroic_ wasn’t exactly how she felt after the last several hours. Straightening, she slipped one hand into her lap to smooth the soft skirt of her pink-on-white polka dotted halter-neck summer dress, eyes on the smooth red polish tipping her fingers. The sun-warmed air curled against the back of her neck under her ponytail, the summer breeze caressing her bare shoulders, and it was all Felicity could do to try to pull that warmth inwards towards the frozen core of her, desperate to thaw.

“Hero” felt impossibly far from her reach. It would be enough to feel human.

She was saved from having to answer Lyla by the arrival of their server.

Lyla engaged the chipper young woman in polite banter to give Felicity the chance to gather herself, and Felicity was both absurdly grateful and furiously embarrassed that she needed to _gather_ herself to place a lunch order.

When the server swept away back into the restaurant, Lyla settled back in her chair with a puff of breath, laying her hands atop one another over her stomach. “So is it all over, then? You’re back in real life now?”

Grimacing, Felicity drew shapes along her perspiring glass with one fingertip. “More or less. The hard part’s over, I guess.” Her grimace deepened, a weary sigh hissing through her teeth. “The hardest part was probably calling my mom, honestly.”

Lyla made a “yikes” face. “Didn’t go well? I would’ve thought she’d be overjoyed to hear your voice. I didn’t meet her when she was here, but Johnny said she was pretty distraught, couldn’t stop telling Oliver all about you.”

Felicity groaned and dropped her face into her hands. “I don’t even want to _know_ what she told him. I really, really don’t.” She puffed air at the tabletop, fingers tented against her forehead. “She was happy to hear from me for about thirty seconds. Then the hysterics and crying started.” Her head pulled up and she knew the look she was giving Lyla was pouty and sullen but she couldn’t help it. “Are my eyes still puffy? They still feel puffy. Because when Donna Smoak cries, she makes sure everyone else is crying too.”

Brow wrinkling in caring confusion, Lyla breathed a weak little chuckle and shook her head. “You look fresh as a daisy, kiddo. Must have good face wash. Was it really that bad?”

Felicity’s scowl was sour and churlish, but the childish face-pulling was just theatrics to cover the fractured aching in her chest. She scoffed. “Let’s just say I hope I never have to have a conversation with my mother like that ever again. Next time I go missing for three months, just tell my mom I’m on expedition in the Amazon or something.”

Lyla smiled wryly at the half hearted joke and kindly let the subject drop, letting a moment of merciful city-quiet fall over the table.

Gratefully, Felicity stared off across the sparsely-populated patio, swallowing to encourage the bitter knot in her throat to dissolve.

The phone call with Donna had been easily the most difficult part of the morning. Felicity had known it would be and had determined it best to get it done with first. Even still, it had taken a Herculean effort to clean herself up afterwards and get out the door to do the cover story tour with Oliver.

Her mother was… her mother. No one better knew Felicity’s most vulnerable points, or was equipped with sharper knives to throw at her.

_“You left, with no word! For months! Do you have any idea how terrified, how heartbroken I was? Did it occur to you at all what this would do to me, Felicity? Of course you didn’t think of your poor mother, not even for a second! It was so selfish. You’ve never been more like your father.”_

Every word had hit its mark.

Lyla kept a companionable silence until the server returned, setting their food on the tabletop in front of them with chirping cheerfulness.

Felicity dug into her lunch with thankful gusto, popping a hot, salty thick-cut french fry into her mouth to let her appetite dispel her melancholy. She and Lyla had met for a late lunch while Oliver separated to run errands, and at a quarter past two in the afternoon, Felicity found herself famished.

Savoring her meal, she glanced across the table at Lyla, who was dressing her grilled chicken salad but had her eye on Felicity’s plate. Rather than envy, there was a familiar curiosity gracing Lyla’s face, one brow mildly quirked as she stared at Felicity’s BLT.

Having seen that look more than a few times, Felicity picked up half of her sandwich and wiggled it to draw Lyla’s attention to her. “It’s not as scandalous as it looks. I’m a secular Jew. Non-practicing. Means I embrace my heritage and am proud of my ancestral legacy, but I don’t regularly go to synagogue or keep kosher.”

As if to punctuate her point, she took a large bite of her sandwich, relishing the crispy bacon and juicy, bright tomato under Lyla’s amused gaze.

“Actually, I was just wondering if bacon and fries met the clean-and-simple diet restriction you were put on,” Lyla gently teased. “But the kosher thing is good to know too. I’ll remember if Johnny and I ever get you over to the apartment for dinner.”

Warming in pleasure at the implicit future dinner invitation, Felicity rolled her eyes and swallowed her mouthful. “If this _isn’t_ on the Digg-approved list of foods, I don’t even care. There’s lettuce, there’s tomato; it’s barely half an evolutionary step above a salad.” She picked up another french fry and bit off one end tartly. “And it’s delicious, which is the part I care about.”

Lyla chuckled and speared a forkful of salad. “I’m sure.”

Viciously biting off the end of another fry, Felicity rolled her eyes. “You’d think people freaking out when they see me eat peanut butter because they don’t realize I have a _tree_ nut allergy, and peanuts aren’t even actually _nuts_ anyways, but you’d think dealing with that that all my life would give me a higher tolerance for people trying to tell me what I can or can’t eat, but.” She sighed, the breath carrying a little frustrated growl on the end of it as she scowled at her plate. “I keep having to remind myself I love Digg, and no I should not punch him in the nose.”

Laughing, Lyla grinned at her, eyes twinkling. “As I look at that nose every day, I appreciate your restraint. Have you punched Oliver yet or is your restraint holding there, too?”

Felicity snorted, an almost reluctant smirk curling one side of her mouth as she lifted half of her sandwich in both hands. “I have wanted to punch him a few times but I have to admit not over the food thing. Oliver is a _lot_ easier to push around than Digg.”

Lyla snickered, winking. “Speak for yourself.”

They spent a few moments eating companionably until, belatedly, around a mouthful of salad, Lyla said, “Speaking of Oliver.” Felicity looked up at her curiously, one eyebrow rising. “How’s that whole thing going?”

Felicity stared at her blank-faced for a beat, heart feeling suddenly heavier in her chest and spine locking. “Whole thing?”

Setting her fork down, Lyla pushed her mouth to one side in a sympathetic grimace. “Tell me to butt out if it’s none of my business, but I assume you know Johnny has me read in on all the relevant dramatics.” Felicity’s expression pinched warily, but Lyla leaned forward as much as her stomach would allow, her eyes earnest. “I’m not trying to pry, and I’m definitely not going to judge. I just know, with the way John said things went down, things can’t be all that easy in that tiny little apartment right now. I just wanted to check in with you, but you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

Trying a weak smile, Felicity curled her fingers against her palms. “No, it’s… it’s fine. Things have been… tense, I guess.” She worried her lips with her teeth, gaze briefly unfocusing. “We did the apology thing. And that… helped? But some things are easier to apologize for then get over or let go, I guess.”

“Yeah, especially when you can’t really get any space to process.” Lyla sipped at her iced tea, brows raised over the rim of the glass. “That would drive me nuts. I mean, Johnny and I live together but we’re a couple for one thing. And I can always get in the car and go for a drive if he’s pissing me off enough that looking at him makes me want to breathe fire.”

Irritation bubbled in her veins like water rising suddenly to a boil. “I can’t even do that. We were supposed to go get my car from the garage he’s had it stored at today, but he got a call from his lawyer. And I’d take a cab back to the apartment, but Oliver freaks out if he can’t keep tabs on me or doesn’t know exactly where I am and how long it’ll take to put eyes on me again.”

Lyla stared at her for a moment, lips pressed together and eyes narrowing slowly. Finally, she said, “You’re gonna have to draw a line in the sand on that boy eventually, Felicity, you know that, right?”

Felicity sighed and sat back in her chair. “I’m just not ready for that fight. I know it’s coming, but I just…”

She let her eyes slip closed as the weight of exhaustion settled over her like a leadened blanket. She’d had what felt like more nightmares than hours of true sleep over the last three nights, and the tiredness layered on top of her frayed nerves and jostled against all the sharp edges of Oliver’s presence was cutting her temper faster and faster down to the wick.

She wet her lips and opened her eyes, staring at the edge of the table unseeing. “Sometimes… it almost feels like I never got out. Like I’m still trapped in that little apartment, and any moment Tommy’s going to turn the corner and I’m going to still be _there_.” Across the table, Lyla was a patient, waiting silence, giving Felicity room to fill the space between them words or not as she chose. “I don’t want to say that Oliver is keeping me prisoner. That Oliver is doing what Tommy did. It’s not true and I don’t… I don’t feel like that, not really.” She exhaled a weak, mirthless laugh. “But I can’t help feeling like… at least when I was _there_ , I had a door I could close between us. I don’t know if missing that makes me broken.”

“No,” Lyla answered quietly, firmly. “Just makes you human.”

Trying not to choke up again, Felicity managed a small, thin smile for her.

Human. That was good enough for now.

Launching suddenly into an upright position, the legs of her chair squealing against the paved patio with the force of the motion, Lyla made an almost cartoonish face of irritation and said, “And with magnificent timing, I now leave you to go pee for the five millionth time today. I’ll waddle back as quick as I can.”

She thrust herself grumbling to her feet as Felicity burst into a helpless laugh, and Felicity cherished the blossoming warmth in her chest as she walked Lyla strut—or indeed, _waddle_ —quickly away into the bistro.

She let her laughter taper off into silence, and just leaned back in her seat and enjoyed the moment alone. They’d been few and far between of late.

Still, she was glad that Lyla had invited her unexpectedly to do lunch with her. They’d hardly known each other before—well, _before_. But John Diggle was a vastly important linchpin between them, and Felicity was incredibly pleased that not only did she and Lyla seem to get along, but truly liked each other. It was a relief she couldn’t entirely place in words to have a woman she could reach out to, who knew what she had survived, and had the context and vocabulary to understand it.

In much the same way, Laurel’s solidarity and empathy had been solid ground to cling to amidst the maelstrom of pain and anger that had been her confession the other day. She doubted she would ever be as close to the older Lance sister as she had so instantly clicked with the younger, but Felicity found herself almost overwhelmed with gratitude nonetheless.

For the last two years, her circle had mostly been men. Oliver and Digg. Roy. Sara far more briefly than she would have liked.

Before that, there had been… no one. For so long.

She’d gotten so used to the loneliness and the emptiness of her days after college that she’d grown numb and blind to it, and each new connection was like another limb coming awake in a burst of pins and needles. Welcome, but strangely painful.

The last four months had almost been a repeat in miniature. So desperately alone in her cell those first two months it had started to feel _normal_. Then, Tommy; not quite a friend, but any port in a storm, as the saying went.

And now, _home_.

Sometimes it was overwhelming, even her friends too much, making her feel claustrophobic and surrounded. And yet, she couldn’t help but feel like her odd little family was expanding, with Laurel and Lyla, and she found herself greedy at the idea of losing any of those connections.

As Felicity absently ran her palms along the tops of the arms of her chair, awash in the sunlit warmth and city-block ambience of the bistro, she wondered if perhaps that was why there was that nagging feeling haunting the hollow spaces in her chest, that whispered anxiously about where Tommy might be, if he was safe, if he was in the city, if the League might catch up with him out there, alone.

Her friends surrounded and encircled her, protective and comforting, and still… still she felt that tether stretching beyond them, seeking Tommy out. Unwilling to let him go.

She didn’t know if she should.

Or if she even could.

Releasing her breath in a huff, Felicity shook herself and shoved those heavy thoughts away, pushing away from the drag on her psyche.

Not here. Not now.

She wanted, in this moment, just to be _present_.

Curling one hand around her sweating soda glass, letting the cold against her palm be an anchor, Felicity grounded herself in the familiar coziness of the bistro. She’d loved eating on the open-air patio attached to the small building’s side since she’d discovered the place in her first year in Starling. She liked to sit and watch over the decorative wrought-iron railing enclosing the umbrella-shaded tables and watch people go by on the sidewalk, bustling in and out of the little shops and boutiques lining the street.

Today, at this odd hour, they had lucked into having the patio all to themselves, creating an illusion of peace and safety set apart from the hustle of downtown Starling. Felicity decided to take advantage and settled into her chair to look out over the scene as she waited for Lyla to return, relaxing into the static of the street noise and taking comfort in the teeming afternoon traffic: the cars passing on the street, and the people of all types.

Things she’d thought, at times, she might not see again.

Her eyes tracked a young woman leading a small child by the hand until they slipped from view, then switched across the road to a pair of older women strolling up the sidewalk, fingers entwined and laughing as they talked.

Felicity let their ease and happiness infect her, pulling at her lips as the women stepped into the cafe directly across from the bistro. When the door closed behind them, she turned her attention to the clutch of people seated at the handful of tables under the cafe’s awning.

A college-aged girl bent over a laptop with multiple to-go cups clustered by her elbow, expression drawn and eyes hollowed by sleepless deadline-crunching.

At the next table, four teenagers laughing and jostling each other and passing around a cell phone, poring over its screen.

After them, a handsome dark-skinned man Diggle’s age in a sharply pressed suit, brow knit as he pored over a newspaper.

And next—

Felicity froze, tension snapping her spine straight as if jerked upright by wires, her breath stuttering to a painful halt in her throat.

Eyes wide, she stared across the street at the last table’s sole occupant, turned almost away from her, mostly in profile. She stared, wide eyed and lock-limbed, like prey, arrested by the line of that jaw and nose—by the thin, dark mustache over full lips curled into a cruel smirk.

She stared, frozen by terror, like a rabbit before a wolf.

“No,” she gasped.

Not here. Not _now_.

An SUV rumbled past down the street, bass thumping, and momentarily blocked Felicity’s line of sight.

She surged to her feet as it passed, head whipping back and forth as she searched, but the table was empty, the man had _disappeared_ , he could be anywhere, he could have crossed the street by now, he could be coming right for her—

Felicity had shoved away from her chair and backpedaled three steps, Tommy’s name forming on her lips, before she took firm hold of herself and grasped at the back of her chair, anchoring herself on the spot.

“There was no one there,” she hissed to herself, even as her eyes darted from face to face. “He’s gone. He’s _gone_.”

Swallowing the sour taste of fear, Felicity forced herself rigidly back into her seat, though she couldn’t quite tear her eyes from the view of the street.

Heart lodged like a stone in her throat, she whispered in a thread-thin voice that was far too pleading to be convincing, “Al-dhi’b is dead.”

—

“I just think you’re all babying her too much,” Lyla said as she carefully folded an absurdly tiny onesie patterned in cartoon rubber ducks.

The beat of silence to her left was weighted, and Lyla turned her head to see John leveling her with hooded eyes and a smirk ruthlessly suppressed by pursed lips. As she met his eyes, one brow climbed slowly, head tilting two degrees to the right in fond reproachment.

Eyes rolling, Lyla grinned and set the onesie atop a small stack of others on the coffee table. “Pun not intended.”

“Uh huh.” The wry warmth in that one word could have dripped like honey, doing nothing to dampen Lyla’s smile. John picked up a pastel green baby blanket from the laundry basket on the floor between them and shook the wrinkles from it. “And what makes you say we’re _babying_ Felicity?”

Expression sobering a smidge, Lyla dug around in the basket for another onesie. “I can’t claim to know her as well as you, but I think this might one of those situations you’re too close to see completely clearly. She just seems…” She sat up with a knot of baby clothes in hand and began sorting them in her lap. “Lost, I suppose. And restless, maybe.” She thought of Felicity seated at their lunch table when Lyla returned from the bathroom. Back rigid and the line of her mouth just a little too hard as she’d tried to surreptitiously slip the butter knife she’d been clenching in her fist back onto her plate without Lyla noticing. “She needs something to do, Johnny.”

“What she needs to do is heal and recover,” was his automatic, slightly testy reply.

Lyla slid him a pointed glance and his shoulders slowly lowered an inch.

“Sorry,” he sighed. “I’ve never been much the mother hen type, so I don’t know why I’m helicoptering her so damn much.” He paused, frowning at the crease he was lining up on a star-speckled burp rag. “You really think we’re smothering her?”

Lyla shrugged, hands busy with the automatic motions of folding. “Little bit, babe. Just ease up on her a little. She’s vulnerable, sure, but she’s not fragile. Putting myself in her shoes, I’d need a mission, an ass to kick, something like that. She’s not a wounded civilian. She needs back into the fight.”

John leaned forward to add to the stacks of baby laundry, expression thoughtful. “You may have a point there.”

“You bet your ass I do,” Lyla teased, smirking playfully. After the expected return-fire didn’t come she frowned, turning her head. “Johnny?”

He seemed not to hear her, staring into his open palms, big and strong, and the impossibly small yellow socks cupped in them. His gaze had gone distant and a little misty, his mouth soft and curling in faint, adoring awe at the corners.

Bursting into a grin, her heart swelling in her chest, Lyla laughed and shoved gently at his shoulders, bringing him blinking back to her. “You’re so damn _cute_ ,” she crooned. “This kiddo’s gonna have you wrapped around every little finger she’s got.”

Chuckling, cheeks flushing, John ducked his head. “Yeah, she will.”

—

It took Felicity two days to decide she had not, in fact, seen Al-Dhi’b in Starling City.

It was not that she was _certain_ , or could prove it as fact, or even say it without doubt.

But after forty-eight hours of twitching at sudden noises, her eyes straying constantly to the door—checking and double checking and triple checking the locks, the chain across the jamb—clocking Oliver’s position at all times, and cataloging every object in any room she entered that could be put between her and an attacker, picked up and thrown, or utilized as a weapon, she had had enough.

Enough of the shallow, uneasy dozing that substituted real sleep, enough of her fingers ceaselessly tracing a heart that no longer showed below the hollow of her throat.

For the sake of her sanity, she made a decision. It wasn’t him.

Al-Dhi’b was dead.

For the sake of her sense of self, Felicity made another decision that day.

It involved placing an online shopping order and paying for overnight shipping.

Felicity brought her package with her when she and Oliver drove over to the foundry. Somehow, even just holding the small parcel in her lap helped to ground her, and a sense of cautious calm stole into her chest.

It stayed with her once the boys settled into sparring, and Felicity settled in at her desk.

For a little while, there was something like peace as Felicity queued up instructional how-to videos on one monitor and explainer articles on another, the welcoming hum of puzzle-solving given tempo by the grunts, blows, and running commentary from the training mats.

She fell into the comfortable flow of concentration, cardboard and bubble packaging discarded in the trashcan below the desk, her fingers and hands learning unfamiliar motions and metal clinking and scraping softly.

Somewhere below the immediate, a thought whispered like a cool breath through her mind, that this moment was all too like the daydream she had once constructed to keep her warm in her cell.

The idea curled a smile onto her face that stayed as she worked at her task.

Some time later, it vanished abruptly when Roy bumped against her desk with his hip as he rubbed a towel over his sweat-darkened hair.

“What are you doing?” he asked, and there was something strangely accusatory in his tone as he eyed the spread of tools over the desk surface.

She straightened and wrinkled her nose. “Roy, would you mind stepping back? You’re dripping sweat on my stuff.”

Pulling a face, he leaned deliberately over the desktop and roughly tousled the cloth over his hair with both hands, and Felicity cried out in disgust as little salt-droplets speckled the surface.

“You’re so gross!” she protested, slapping at his bare shoulder until he leaned back, snickering.

“Seriously though, what is all this?” he chucked his chin at the desk--and then he glanced at her computer monitors. “Wait. _YouTube_?”

Defensive at the incredulous scorn in his voice, Felicity hovered her hands protectively over her tools. “I’m taking up lockpicking.”

“With _YouTube_ tutorials? Seriously?”

“What’s wrong with that?” she shot back, chin jutting forward.

“What’s wrong with what?” Diggle interrupted smoothly, sidling up behind Roy, barechested and skin shining from exertion, a short towel hung behind his neck and both hands tugging the ends down.

Oliver stood beside him, equally underclothed and sweaty.

For just a moment, Felicity’s mind went blank of all but bare skin and muscles. What an embarrassment of riches.

Roy brought her quickly back to the moment. “It’s insulting is what it is.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, _how_ is me learning to pick locks about you?”

“Because you’re using _YouTube_ and WikiHow!” He protested, as if that illuminated all. “That shit’s gonna be neutered as fuck, this is like how-to-make-a-bomb as taught by a high school chem teacher level introductory.”

Felicity scoffed, cheeks warming. “Well not all of us learned to hotwire cars and pick pockets by the time we were six, Roy, I have to start somewhere.” Her flush deepened instantly as the sharpness of her words hit the air, and she searched Roy’s face for hurt.

He didn’t even pause, eyes rolling. Turning to Digg and Roy, he flung a hand at her monitors as if they were suspects in a lineup. “Back me up here guys, I bet these things don’t even start out talking about bump keys and just go on for ten paragraphs about locksmithing history or some bullshit.”

Digg and Oliver exchanged blank looks and Digg shrugged, making an _I-don’t-know_ noise.

Oliver scratched behind his ear. “Generally if a door is locked and I need to get through it, I just kick it down.”

The look Roy threw him was scathing. “Very helpful, really. Felicity here can’t just put the fear of god into a complex deadbolt until it gives her what she wants, however.”

Oliver looked surprised by the echoed words and shot Felicity a faintly betrayed glance. She pursed her lips and arched her brows sheepishly.

Diggle coughed a laugh. “Oh, sure, Roy, but he can always teach her the art of dramatically crashing through skylights instead, right?”

Oliver turned his wounded pride on Digg, and Felicity couldn’t help but grin and chime in, “Or jump through windows.”

“He really hates glass, doesn’t he?” Digg teased, winking at her.

“Like you’re any better, Digg,” Oliver snapped sullenly. “You’d just teach her to shoot through the lock.”

Arms folding across his chest, Digg shrugged, chin high and expression serene. “It is effective.”

Roy threw his hands up at both of them in disgusted surrender. “Amateurs.” He pointed an accusing finger at Felicity and she leaned back in her seat, brows high as he turned that finger on the screens. “Get rid of that shit, if you’re gonna learn to pick locks you’re gonna do it right.”

“Am I to take it that you’re going to teach me?” she asked, eyes narrowing.

He nodded emphatically and started looking around for the spare rolling chair. “Yes, I am.”

Amused, Felicity bit her cheek against a smile and put her head to one side, ponytail sliding across her shoulders. “Then let me respectfully request you put on a shirt first, Professor.”

Digg snorted and Roy paused, cheeks lighting up as he glanced down, seeming to only just realize he was still topless. “Right. I will do that.” His brows snapped back together then and a scowl exaggeratedly contorted his mouth. “And then you are going to pick locks until your fingers go numb.”

Snapping off a fond salute, Felicity nodded emphatically. “Aye aye, cap’n.”

Roy just rolled his eyes again and shook his head, turning and stalking off towards the bathroom.

He only made a few steps before a familiar ping chimed from the speakers of Felicity’s computers. It was followed by another, and then another.

All eyes turned towards the monitors as Felicity pulled up to her keyboard, fingers flying as she switched the screens over to her monitoring program. “Guys, we’ve got an alarm and multiple calls about a bank break-in on Hollyoak and Tenth. Armed intruders, police are minimum twenty minutes out. There’s apparently a big mayoral gala going on at City Hall that’s pulled in all the patrol units and traffic is gridlocked around it for blocks.”

She looked up at Digg and Oliver, brows raised expectantly.

“I’m suiting up,” Roy called decisively, turning on his heel for the gear lockers.

Oliver and Diggle shared a long, speaking glance full of raised and furrowed brows and expressively flickering eyelids.

Impatiently, Felicity cleared her throat. “Guys? Time, it’s of the essence. Are we doing this?”

Still locking gazes, Digg expelled a hard breath and gave Oliver the faintest nod. Sighing, Oliver closed his eyes before turning a purposeful expression on Felicity. “We’re doing this.”

Digg peeled off behind him to head for the gun locker, but Oliver took a step closer to the desk, and Felicity’s palms inexplicably slicked with sweat, her heartbeat tripping over itself in anxious haste. A feeling like panic coated in a frustrated anger inflated in her chest, crowding her heart, her lungs, rising in her throat like a balloon.

If he told her to sit out, if he said _one word_ about her safety—

“Pull up the schematics of the building and get us eyes inside as quick as you can. We’re gonna need you on comms.”

Felicity blinked and the balloon in her chest burst, the fight spoiling inside her rushing out of her on a long exhale. Something inside of her crystallized in its place, bright and hard and familiar, and Felicity welcomed back that clean feeling of certainty like a long-lost old friend. “Got it. Better grab your bow.”

She nodded towards the gear area where Roy was half zipped into his suit and already fumbling for his quiver in his impatience.

Oliver’s lips curled into that sly, warm half-smile, and he gave her a firm nod before heading for his own gear.

Felicity threw herself into her own work with a strange joy, breaking into the bank’s closed circuit security system with a fierce pleasure and remotely shutting down the power as the field team approached from the street.

Static crackled in Felicity’s ear, sending an electric, almost absurd sense of homecoming— _finally, finally_ —down her spine.

As she watched the shadows of her boys split around the sides and front entrance of the building on the cameras, Oliver’s voice whispered over the comm and directly into her ear, brusque and full of confidence—in their mission, in _her_.

“ _Okay, Felicity. Talk us in_.”

—

“Thank you for tonight. I really needed this.”

Walking close to Laurel’s side on the sidewalk, but keeping that crucially respectful inch and a half distance, Ted turned a warm grin on her. “Pretty sure I should be the one thanking you. I was starting to worry I’d done something really embarrassing on our last coffee date.”

Laurel clucked her tongue, trying to swallow a smile.

He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, tilting his head up to look at the thin sparkle of the stars visible through the city-night sky. “I mean, you really put me out of my misery here. I’ve been imagining all sorts of humiliating faux pas.” He met her eyes again with glitter of humor in his. “I even got to take you out for a real meal this time.”

Laurel laughed. “Sure, if you call that a meal.” He made a playfully offended noise, and she slid him a smirk. “You promised me food so spicy my mouth would be on fire. It’s _barely_ burning, Grant.”

“Yeah?” He smiled broadly, his glance slipping from her eyes to her lips. They lingered there, setting her heart pounding. “Next time I’ll have to try harder to really bring the heat.”

Laurel bit her bottom lip and looked down at the pointed toes of her heels. “I’d like that,” she answered, carefully mild.

They walked on a little further, and his elbow brushed her upper arm.

A moment later, Ted touched her wrist and stopped. “This is you, right?”

Laurel looked up to view the facade of her apartment building, wishing faintly that it were even a little further down the block. “This is me,” she agreed reluctantly.

Ted rocked on his feet at the bottom of the front steps. “It was good seeing you again, Laurel. And not even in boxing gloves.”

She laughed lightly and put one foot on the first step. “We’ll have to do it again sometime. Next time I pick the restaurant, though. I’ll show you spicy food.”

He looked at her, smile blooming slowly into a grin. The bright lightness of it made her breath catch. “I look forward to it.”

Hands still in his pockets, Ted stepped closer, and Laurel stayed where she was. He leaned towards her, slow and careful, giving her time to react, to push back.

She stood her ground.

His breath hit her cheek first, soft and hesitant. The press of lips that followed, however, was firm, if brief.

His stubble left behind a prickling tingle on her cheek as he straightened back again, mouth curved faintly and gaze full of warm possibility. “Good night, Laurel.”

He ducked his head as he walked away, but not before she saw the grin burst onto his face. She watched him stride away down the street, her fingertips rising to brush the spot on her cheek that still buzzed from his kiss.

She went inside, biting back a goofy smile, and it wasn’t until she reached the first landing of the stairwell that she let it fade, and allowed the haunt of guilt and confusion to press on her heart again.

“I deserved this,” she whispered to herself fiercely, hand clenching tightly on the bannister.

Nodding firmly to herself, she started back up the stairs, letting the excitement and ease of her evening with Ted ebb away and the tide of shadow that was Tommy’s return to her life roll back in.

In a way, she found herself furious with Tommy. For being alive. For coming back into her life _now_ , when she was just starting again, ready to open the door for new happiness after the mistakes and nightmares that had been her every choice in the year after Tommy’s death, his ghost shading every decision and action.

It was ridiculous to feel guilty for going to dinner with Ted when Tommy was _alive_ , somewhere out there in the city, hurting and broken.

They had been broken up even before Tommy had died.

But he had died to _save her_.

His last words to her a profession of love.

She owed him no fidelity. No widow’s watch. She had only _finally_ made space for the grief of him inside of her.

But the specter of his final sacrifice had solidified into a distorted, bloodstained, living and breathing killer.

She couldn’t let herself fall to pieces, lose hold of everything she’d worked so hard to regain. Not for this frightening, sharp-edged new version of the Tommy Merlyn she’d loved, lost, and finally started to let go.

Her jaw ached from clenching it so tightly by the time she made it to her front door, keys in hand. Sighing, she unclenched her teeth and tried to rub the tension out of the hinge of her jaw.

As she opened the door, Laurel was already planning the long, hot bath she would sink into before bed, hoping it would help her sleep better tonight than the string of nights preceding it. She locked the door behind her and hung her keys on the hook on the wall as she turned to the dark apartment, but she was only two steps towards the mouth of the hall before her stride faltered and she stopped.

At first, it was just a twitch of a feeling, a spark of unease. Something off. Something _wrong_.

Her brow furrowed as her eyes adjusted to the dim around her cut only by the streetlights filtering through from the living room and kitchen windows. As the shadows resolved into defined shapes and edges, she realized what had triggered the instincts she’d honed in two years of home invasions and assaults.

At the back of the hall, her bedroom door stood ajar, about an inch of differently-textured darkness showing between the door itself and the jamb.

Before she had left in the early evening to meet Ted, she had, as always, firmly closed it behind her.

Laurel slipped out of her heels and took one careful step back, lips pulling into a grimace as the floorboards sighed creakily beneath her weight. Eyes never leaving that inch of shadow, she leaned to the side and dipped her hand into the umbrella stand to the right of the front door.

Her rings bit against the wrapped handle of the wooden bat hidden among the umbrellas, and Laurel lifted it slowly, quietly, hefting it high at her shoulder as she proceeded cautiously into the hall. She would have preferred the reassuring weight of her shotgun, but it lived in the bedroom, and her only hope for it now was that any unexpected guest hadn’t discovered it for themselves.

The air shifted as she neared the bedroom, a warm drift stirring the hair at her neck, and the window in her room came into view in the sliver of the open door—the curtains shifting, the frame inches above the sill.

 _Not again_ , Laurel thought fiercely. _Not this time_.

Shifting her grip on the bat, she sucked in a fast breath and steeled her nerves—

—and kicked the bedroom door open and leapt inside, eyes finding instantly the shadowed figure beside the dresser, bat swinging—

The figure whirled, and Laurel’s bat struck the raised metal pole they held aloft with a reverberating impact that rattled up the bones of her arms and into her bared teeth.

“Guess I should’ve called first,” the intruder quipped wryly, the orange streetlight gleaming gold on her hair. “Or turned on a light maybe.”

Laurel’s eyes bulged and her grip on the bat went slack, dropping it through boneless fingers to clatter on the floor. “Sara?”

Grinning in her black leather and mask, Sara slid the bo staff she held into the harness at her back. “Hi, Sis. I’m home.”

—

He jerked awake surrounded by the reek of sweat and piss.

The piss-stench was as much a part of the abandoned half-collapsed brick tenement building as its peeling wallpaper and warped floorboards, the legacy of countless desperate squatters before him. The sweat, however, rose from the filth of his own skin, gluing his clothes to his body with a gritty patina of salt.

He stank of fever and night-terror, blood crusted under his fingernails and in the crescents they had left in his palms. The taste of bile lay thick on his tongue, throat raw and swollen with ache as he lay curled tightly against the wall in the corner of the little room he had taken for his own haunt. From his corner, he could see the door that led from the second-floor hall, too badly warped to properly hang in its frame, and the sole window in the one-room flat. It was a gaping hole lined by glass shard teeth through which the night air of the Glades whistled and breathed.

Groaning, Tommy shakily sat up, kicking a little at the duffel bag he’d tucked between his legs and the wall. Every bone and muscle burned with strain as if he had put his body through the wringer, instead of only dreaming it.

He leaned against the wall, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. In his lap, his left hand was fused into a fist, and Tommy’s lips pulled across his teeth in a grimace as he uncurled each finger with conscious deliberation. He looked down at last at the green flechette now exposed in his palm, the skin lined and scraped by the impression of its sharp edges.

He didn’t remember palming the little weapon, but could only be relieved no one had come upon him as he’d slept. He was feeling clear, present now, if weak and a little unmoored, but the last several days had been one haze of nightmare and memory blurring into the next, each bloodier and more violent than the last. He didn’t care to think of what he might have done if startled awake while armed.

Sitting there against the wall, he felt like a child surfacing from a bad flu. Feeble and exhausted, body throbbing with the ghost of agony and infection. Only this infection was of Talia’s making, of lies and deception and a fabricated sense of self. Memories broke through the snarl in sudden, overwhelming bursts, awake and unconscious, vivid assaults of relived torture and experimentation.

It had started at Verdant, in the long stretches too alone and too quiet, a slow bubbling that had risen to a searing boil after his escape from the foundry into the storm. He had wandered the dark, rain-drenched streets, body a collection of bruises and contusions from Oliver’s fists, his mind a series of fracturing glass panes.

He couldn’t quite recall how he found this building, or how long he had stumbled through the crumbling neighborhoods around it, only Talia’s voice hissing through his head, trying to tie dark ribbons around his shattering psyche, pull him neatly back into the functioning, fabricated shape she had built of him.

The fever, he suspected, was his body’s rebellion to that voice, attempting to burn her from his head like a poisonous fog. As the lies and set pieces had fallen away, however, the darkness of truth had bubbled up beneath.

_—the view of his own guts, flesh held back by clamps as slim, gloved brown hands pressed, prodded, cut—_

Dark.

_—naked and bound to a chair under a single burning lamp, pointed fingernails caging his jaw, words flowing like black tar into his ear, all in Arabic, nothing he understood—_

Darker.

_—“Are you mine, Thomas?” Cold, so cold._

_“Yes,” a broken exhale._

_“Of course you are. I made you. You belong to me.”_

_Blindness. Pressure against his back, pointed, digging._

_“Say it. Correctly.”_

_“Please—” The pressure continues, dropping him to his knees. Bending him. Boring into the skin. In stumbling, halting Arabic, like marbles in the mouth, “I am yours!”_

_The pressure continues, stabbing through the muscle. “Say it.”_

_“I belong to you!”_

_The blade angles, drags down, paralleling his spine. “Say it!”_

_“You made me!” Cut. Slice. His skin begins to peel back from the muscle. He screams, chokes on acid and blood biting his tongue. Sobs and gasps, “I am yours, I am yours, all I am is yours, I am sworn to the League and to you—”_

_There is a burning, mind-whitening rip and his voice shrivels in his throat._

_“Finish the words,” hisses in his ear. “You know them.”_

_The blood pours down his side, pools beneath him hot as the air on his back is horrifically cold._

_In a shaking, stuttering whisper, he breathes fervently, “All I am is yours and I swear my service and my life to the League and to you, Daughter of the Demon.”_

Until he felt lost in a black haze, tumbling in a sightless ocean of horror, buffeted by terrifying revelation and grisly discovery. He had lost days to the barrage of frightening details surfacing from the recesses of his mind, some of it so vivid even waking that he could taste the iron on his tongue, smell the cold limestone of that vast, cold cave, feel the crush and collapse of someone else’s skull between his hands.

The fever raged and the memories dragged him back down the chain of the last year, link to link, cut to cut, death to death, until at last, the first.

That death, _his_ death, stood in stark contrast to the vicious clarity of the others that had followed it.

He relived the sensations more than the events. The burning strain in his thighs, in his arms and back as the weight of the column overwhelmed his strength. The gasping, terrifying shock of his knees buckling. A rasp and stinging pain as the pillar slipped off his palms and took skin with it.

His shin and knee hitting the concrete with a jarring thud. The whole world shaking apart around him, and then—

He remembered the sudden, crushing weight flattening him down to the rubble.  
  
The startling _punch_ in his abdomen, at first so much more shocking than painful.  
  
It didn't really hurt until, gasping under the crush of that chunk of ceiling, he breathed in.  
  
Oh, and _then_. It didn't matter that it was dark. He could smell the smoke.  
  
But every nerve ending, _there_. _That_ was where the fire burned, when he inhaled and something _popped_ , tore, and roared to life in screaming agony that robbed him of sound.

Dying had been slow, a torture of waiting and bleeding and the bubbling of his breathing. But the actual moment of his death, in hindsight, seemed so sudden.

Oliver’s face hovering above him. The last breath unspooling from his lungs and slipping away. And then, like a switch flipped…

Nothing.

Nothing until rebirth.

Tommy scrubbed his fingers through the unkempt beard growing over his jaw, wincing as his fingertips probed a still-tender bruise near his mouth.

He wondered, suddenly, if he had unconsciously hoped to die this time as he had the first.

Oliver above him, on his back on cold concrete.

He squeezed his eyes shut and sighed. This was not an option for him, not anymore.

Felicity’s furious, flinty stare hung in his mind as he opened his eyes on the hole he’d hidden himself away in.

He no longer truly felt that he wanted to die.

It was as if, lying here in his own grime for days of nightmare and hallucination, he had shed his skin, sloughing off the crust from his eyes that had blinded him to the creature he had become.

Now, perhaps, with the missing pieces finally in his possession, he could be the monster of his own making.

A shift forward wafted his own stink into Tommy’s face and his lip curled in disgust, only serving to make him hyper aware of the gritty film coating his teeth, the stale, sour taste of his mouth.

If he was to choose what kind of monster to be now, he thought he would prefer to be a clean one.

Hissing at the twinge of sore muscles, Tommy pocketed the flechette and pulled the duffel bag he had taken from Oliver into his lap and pulled the zip, digging into its contents to take inventory. It seemed mostly to be clothes—socks, underwear, a few shirts, a couple pairs of pants—but, mercifully, there were toiletries as well.

Tommy’s fingers faltered on the plastic bag wrapped around the body wash, shampoo, shaving cream and razor. They were all brands he had preferred before—before.

Oliver’s earnest, hopeful face flickered across his vision as he handed Tommy the boots he still wore. Before he had understood what he had welcomed home. Before Tommy had taken the careful curtain of peace Felicity had woven with her omissions and half truths and ripped it violently, viciously to shreds.

Tears pricked at the backs of Tommy’s eyes and he swallowed a lump rising in his throat.

He didn’t get the luxury of regret. Not for these choices.

He blinked away the blur of tears as he peered into the bottom of the plastic bag and found, along with the receipt for the items, the cash change Oliver must have tossed carelessly into the bag at the store. There was fifteen dollars and a few coins, all total.

When his stomach erupted into a hollow rumble before contracting painfully, scrunched his mouth into a sort of shrug and supposed food might be easier to find than a shower anyways.

Rising to his feet felt like a raising a marionette crafted of rusted iron bars, every limb and joint stiff and slow. Grimly, he  hefted the duffel bag and shortened the strap, slinging it crossways over his chest to hand against his back. Everything he owned now was in that bag, and though Tommy had never before been homeless or so without resource, leaving his possessions unguarded and unsecured struck as especially stupid.

Moving with a slow, plodding sort of determination as his body readjusted to movement on depleted energy stores, Tommy made his way out of the ramshackle shell of a building and onto the street. It was a poorly lit, hopeless-feeling piece of the Glades, half the streetlights lining the block dark or shattered, casting the cracked and uneven sidewalk in mottled shadow and flickering patches of orange light.

Many of the buildings lining this block were in similar states to the one Tommy had gone to ground in, several bearing faded and forgotten condemned signs, dilapidated boards covering only some windows and dirty yellow caution tape trailing from doorways and window grates. It was an area that had clearly never recovered from the Undertaking, much less the Siege that had followed the year after.

Bitterly, Tommy couldn’t help but feel his father had at least partially gotten his wish. He hadn’t just killed hundreds of the people who lived in the Glades, but parts of the city sector entirely, dead limbs that might never revive.

On this street, there were few people out so late at night. A couple blocks over, near Verdant, there was a certain nightlife, but this neighborhood was cold as a tomb, the empty building looking over the ruptured pavement with hollowed, soulless eyes. Any signs of life here were likely the forgotten and desperate, bedded down and hiding as Tommy had been.

But as he rounded the corner onto 23rd, lifesigns flickered back into existence, late-summer fireflies in the neon advertising lotto tickets and cigarettes, massage parlors and payday loans. There were people here, knots of young men laughing the too-loud warning of danger, a cluster of young women on one corner with jaded, wary eyes and tall heels.

It felt late, near the hour even these folks would vanish behind doors and into cars.

Tommy kept close to the buildings on the sidewalk, his eyes on a little bodega with brightly-lit windows further down the block.

A little beyond it, a cluster of four young men ranging from late teens to mid twenties were heckling the women on the corner, laughing as they got baleful eyes, sharp words, and middle fingers in return.

Tommy tightened his hands around the strap crossing his chest and kept his head angled down as he made his way to the beacon of the bodega, letting out a little breath as he pushed through the door, the little bell tinkling overhead as it closed behind him.

An older hispanic man slouched over the cash counter, glancing up skeptically at Tommy from his magazine, eyes running from head to toe and taking obvious stock of Tommy’s unkempt, dirty appearance.

Grimacing, Tommy stopped by the rack of off brand chips and shuffled his feet a little. “Bathroom?” he asked, startled a little by the gravelled, whisper-thin sound of his own voice.

A little pity mingled in the wariness on the cashier’s face, but he hooked a thumb to the left, directing Tommy to a little alcove between the refrigerated wall and the self-serve coffee counter.

Tommy ducked his head gratefully and made quickly for the bathroom. It was small and, though far from lovely with its stained tile floor and bare plaster walls yellowed around the urinal, it was relatively clean and smelled most strongly of bleach.

Setting his bag on the floor, Tommy retrieved the little plastic bag of toiletries and stripped off his shirt. He wet a sock in the sink and, with a little dabbing of soap, gave his torso a quick, rough sponge bath. When he was relatively clean, he rinsed and wrung out the sock, hanging it on the lip of the sink and turning his attention to the gauze patch taped to his side.

Wincing, he peeled it away from the skin, prodding carefully along the short, puckered red line under his ribs. It was tender to the touch and one of the stitches had popped free, but the skin gave off no excess heat and there was no seepage or oozing from the wound itself. His breath hissed out through his teeth in relief that he hadn’t managed to get it infected. On the contrary, it seemed to be healing well, the edges of the wound beginning to seal together again.

He would have a vicious-looking scar.

_—sitting in a small dark cell surrounded by stone walls, crouched on the floor by the folding metal bench doubling as his bed, waiting for light, waiting for her return, waiting for new instruction, waiting, waiting. Curious, numb, he draws a sharp sliver of stone across the inside of his forearm to see the bright red well up in the dim, and tilts his head to watch as the skin knits slowly back together along the line. All that is left is a warm red smear in seconds, even the welt of pressure smoothed away—_

Tommy shut his eyes and swallowed thickly, sharply shaking his head. Squaring his jaw, he tossed the dirty bandage into the trashcan between toilet and sink, dabbed a little more soap on the wet sock, and carefully cleaned around the healing stab wound.

For good measure, he gave himself another quick wipedown before abandoning the sock to vigorously brush his teeth with the new toothbrush and toothpaste Oliver had picked up with the other items. At last a little cleaner, his head itched fiercely in stark contrast, his scalp crawling with the imagined feel of the dirt and old sweat accumulated among the strands.

Tommy eyed the sink, disappointedly deciding it was too shallow and small to attempt to wash his hair. Looking at his reflection in the rust-flecked rectangle of mirror over the faucet, he squinted thoughtfully and scrubbed his fingertips through the messy disgrace of a beard crawling down his neck.

A little more soap-and-sock action scrubbed his face and beard clean, and he dug back into the bag for the good razor he had seen in there. It had a small trimmer blade along the top edge and Tommy did his best to get the beard growth under some semblance of control.

His hands developed a fine tremble as the coarse, dark trimmings fell into the sink basin, another painful rumbling in his gut reminding Tommy he hadn’t eaten in days. Sighing, he rinsed the razor and sink, wrapping the toiletries and wet sock back in the plastic bag before replacing them in the duffel. When he straightened, clean shirt in hand, the man in the mirror looked no less haggard, but a little more familiar. Smirking wryly at his reflection, Tommy couldn’t help but be amused at how, through death and torture, through brainwashing and psychological breakdown, a little vanity was enough core to his personality to persist even in his current circumstances.

“Looking sharp, Merlyn,” he murmured to himself sarcastically. “Sharp as a butter knife.”

He pulled the clean, dark green Henley over his head, letting out a relieved breath at the already improved feeling of being a little cleaner and smelling a bit better. He slung his bag back across his chest and turned for the door, digging one hand into the pocket of his jeans for the petty cash he’d pocketed. Fifteen dollars should get him a veritable feast in microwave burritos and blue Gatorade.

As he reentered the store proper, the cashier looked up at him again, making no remarks about the several minutes spent monopolizing his single-occupant bathroom, only giving Tommy another once over and a cool but approving nod.

Tommy moved between the aisles, looking at the selection of brightly-packaged candy and junk food, two-litre sodas and canned sausages. His gut panged again with hunger, and as he raised a hand to touch a price tag, his fingers shook.

Fifteen dollars and a handful of coins wouldn’t go very far at all, he realized.

Turning down the next aisle brought him to the travel toiletries and similar items, and Tommy’s eyes were immediately drawn to the shelf with the first aid kits, varying in size next to the assortment of Band-Aids and disinfectant creams. His hand went to his side and, eyes taking quick stock of prices, his mouth tucked down at the corners as he came to unfortunate conclusions.

Even one of the smaller first aid kits would eat about half his cash, but hungry was better than septic. He would figure something more out after he had some fuel in his system and a clearer head.

Swiping one of the small kits off the shelf, Tommy made quick trips down the aisles and into the refrigerated section, tucking items in the crook of his arm under the subtle but watchful gaze of the cashier.

That watchful expression didn’t relax much when Tommy drew up to the counter with his armload of supplies and unloaded them on the cracked surface.

The cashier bided his silence as he rang up the first aid kit, large Gatorade, pair of pre-made triangle turkey sandwiches and three protein bars.

Tommy watched the total on the display creep upwards, his hand in his pocket tightening around the folded pair of bills as it approached, and then surpassed fifteen dollars. Tommy dug the money out of his pocket and laid it out on the countertop, counting out the coins by the bills.

He was a dollar-seventeen short.

Sighing, Tommy looked up at the cashier, who was still watching him, waiting.

“Sorry,” Tommy rasped. “I’ll put one of the sandwiches back. Can you pull it from the total?”

Tommy reached for one of the little sandwiches in its black plastic triangle case, but the cashier’s large, callused hand got there first, picking it up and turning it to peer at the label.

“Says here this one’s expired,” The cashier said in a light, flowing tenor. “One day past sell-by. I can’t go charging money for that kinda thing, you see?” The older man met Tommy’s eye from under bushy, salt and pepper brows. “Could get sued for health shit, y’know?”

He hit a button on the register keyboard, and the numbers on the display turned towards Tommy dropped by a dollar-sixty-five. The cashier set the sandwich back on the counter and shook out a plastic bag, methodically placing Tommy’s purchases inside. He left the “expired” sandwich on the counter, setting the plastic bag beside it as he reached for Tommy’s money.

An unexpected lump formed in Tommy’s throat as the cash drawer opened.

Not looking at him, the cashier said casually, “Mind throwing that out for me? Since it’s expired. There’s a garbage can by the door.”

Tommy opened his mouth to try and squeeze a thank you past the knot in his throat, and at that moment the bell over the door jingled, the only warning as the pack of young men from the street corner spilled laughing into the bodega.

Tommy and the cashier both went still, the cashier watching the young men disperse through the aisles with the same wary, covert stare he’d monitored Tommy, one hand splayed protectively over the still-open cash drawer.

Tommy kept his back to the store, but trained his eyes on the mirrored dome above the wall of cigarettes, watching the fisheye distorted reflection of the boys.

There were four, all of them white, three with shaved heads and one with a military-style crew cut. They were dressed in a motley assortment of leather, camouflage, and denim, combat boots on all of them. Tommy could glimpse tattoos inked on necks and knuckles, but not quite make them out from his current vantage.

As one of them “accidentally” knocked a strip-display of chips off an endcap, his buddies snickering and swearing at him boisterously, Tommy suspected he could guess what the tattoos might be.

“Here,” the cashier spoke softly, pulling Tommy’s attention back to him as he offered him his change and receipt. The older man’s warm skin had gone a shade paler, his jaw locked grimly and free hand firmly hidden away beneath the counter. “You better hit the door.”

Dropping the pretense, he picked up the second sandwich and put it in the bag with the rest before nudging it across the counter with the hand offering the cash.

Tommy accepted the change and bagged items slowly, the hair on the back of his neck prickling as footfalls clomped up behind him.

“Today, hobo,” a snide voice sneered behind him, accompanying a sharp push between the shoulder blades. “Move your ass. Hey old man, I want some scratch-offs and cigarettes. Better get that case open.”

Tommy’s fingers curled tightly around the thin plastic handle of his bag, his upper lip tugging across his teeth. The cashier met his eye with a look warning him off making trouble, and Tommy exhaled in a long sigh, turning slowly in place.

At 5’10”, Tommy wasn’t an especially tall man, but he stood at least three inches over the kid behind him, in his oversized leather jacket and Confederate flag t-shirt, but the kid had the sort of belligerent attitude that seemed to make him think he towered over anyone he stood in front of. There was a flinty, too-bright gleam in the kid’s gray eyes, a wild dare that begged to be tested, to be honed against some savagery. The curl of the kids thin lips screamed of the sort of arrogance that steam-rolled over everything around him, gleefully and callously.

Tommy stared down his nose at the punk, wrestling down the whisper of violence that rose in his stomach like a snake. It would be so easy to just take the kid’s head in both hands, a little torque, a little snap. So easy that Tommy could all but feel the crunch of vertebrae, hear the meaty crack, the thud as the body hit the floor.

 _Kill him_.

It would be… satisfying, really. The very thought of it opened up a gnawing hunger that sat beneath and behind the desire for food, an eagerness that twitched in the fingers of his free hand.

He blinked.

Before the body dropped, the punk’s friends would swarm, wild and disorganized but thirsty for chaos and hurt. The store and the cashier would be easy casualties in anything that followed, and Tommy be all too easily remembered in a recounting to cops after the fact.

“You gonna move?” The kid snapped, teeth baring in a death’s head grin. “Or I gotta move you?”

“That bum givin’ you trouble?” One of the pack called from the beer case. He was built a little more like a bruiser, a sour scowl on his face and a pair of lightning bolts inked on either side of his neck.

The first punk turned his head and, laughing, called back, “Nah, we don’t got a problem.” He turned back to Tommy, squaring up his shoulders as if he thought this made him look more intimidating, instead of merely accentuating how slight and stringy he was. “Do we, faggot?”

Tommy’s upper lip curled. Without a word, he pushed past the punk, bumping him bodily out of the way as he made for the door.

It may not have been entirely wise, as swearing ripped the air in his wake, but as Tommy pushed out into the warm night air, he felt something settle cool, ready, and waiting in his gut. It poured through him like cold liquid, crystallizing the air around him, sharp and vivid and _alive_.

He only made it about three yards down the sidewalk before the pack tumbled howling out behind him, swearing loudly to each other and promising violent delights amid a flurry of slurs and epithets, cobbled together like bully-browed middle schoolers just learning the illicit thrill of offense.

“There’s the fag!” rang out behind him, followed by a clatter of heavy footfalls.

Tommy’s stride continued unbroken and unslowed, bringing him to the mouth of an alley just as the pack caught up to him.

A hard shove hit him between the shoulderblades, then another from the side as he stumbled forward, and the pack crowded him into the alley. As they laughed, Tommy had the idle thought that they reminded him less of a pack of wolves than a pack of hyenas, laughing and braying as they crowded into the alley’s mouth.

Tommy glanced over his shoulder to see a brick wall at the end of the little alley. A dead end.

“Not too bright, huh, tough guy?” The same skinny punk sneered at the front of the little group. “You out here on the streets cuz you’re not all up here, eh?” he tapped his pale temple, grinning.

“Look at ‘im,” Lightning Bolt scoffed. “Piece a shit like this, nobody gonna miss.”

The tallest one, Crew Cut, spun a set of brass knuckles around one finger, the streetlight behind the pack glinting on the metal. “You’re just another piece of human garbage cluttering up these filthy fuckin’ streets, sucking up free meals and city resources like a leech.”

The last hyena, medium build with a swastika inked in plain sight on his throat, smirked cold and cutting. “Know what a leech is?” He mimed a suction motion with his mouth and hand to further laughter from his fellows. “A parasite.”

“Parasites need exterminating,” String Bean at the front sneered, singsong. “We’d be doin’ this city a real favor, taking out the trash.”

“Ain’t this the city of vigilantes?” laughed Crew Cut. “We’re just upholding local tradition.”

“Though I like a little less Arrow, little more Hood, you catch me?” Swastika bared his teeth. “Take care of things _permanently_.”

Tommy ran his eyes across the grinning gaggle of idiots, rotating their heads on their necks, loosening up their fists and cracking knuckles, posturing in pathetic imitations of intimidation. A four-pack of sad little shitheads puffing out their chests and trying to be big boy scary, convinced of their own edgy badassery through rabid racism and anarchist petty violence.

Tommy’s fingers twitched at his side, his wrist rotating slowly, the snake in his guts hissing in Talia’s voice how unfortunate for these little children that they’d managed to back into a corner the sort of monster that had tasted real blood in its teeth.

_Kill them. Kill them. Kill them._

“You shitheads sure do talk a lot,” he deadpanned, bored. “You could really use a new scriptwriter, I gotta say. This isn’t even made-for-TV B-string villain dialogue, it’s very sad.”

“The fuck you say to me?” String Bean spat, eyebrows twisting up comically in surprised afront.

“I mean, honestly,” Tommy continued in that disinterested, easy tone as he gently tossed his plastic bag of supplies toward the alley wall, out of the way of what was coming next. He still hoped to eat those sandwiches, preferably not squashed into a mess. “You’re like the kind of throwaway wannabe nazi cannon fodder you see in Indiana Jones movies. If this were Star Trek you’d be wearing standard issue red shirts it’s that obvious what’s about to happen.”

“This cocksucker really is off his nut!” Lightning Bolt barked on a laugh. “You having some kind of hallucination right now, buddy?” He tossed a hand at his pals. “You’re awfully outnumbered to be shooting off such a smart mouth.”

“Jesus,” Tommy sighed rolling his shoulders to better settle the weight of his duffel against his spine, “are you assholes actually going to do anything or is the strategy to bore me to death with this direct-to-DVD conversation?”

“You’re gonna fuckin die tonight,” Swastika snarled, and Tommy thought how easy it would be to slit open that ugly-ass tattoo with the butterfly knife Swastika showily flashed over his knuckles.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Tommy shrugged, hands open and at the ready.

String Bean struck first, launching the widest, most obvious right hook Tommy had seen in living memory.

It all but happened in slow motion.

The snake in his gut coiled tight, the monster-hunger crowding out the weakness-hunger in a pulsing wash of red.

_Kill them Kill them Kill them_

Tommy stepped neatly into the swing of the punch, catching String Bean’s wrist and turning his momentum against him, throwing him into the alley wall with a crashing thud.

This wasn’t a sparring match. It was no neat, honorable duel. The little gang of neo nazis didn’t wait their turns, take their time or choreograph a neat routine.

They threw themselves at him all at once, a brass-knuckled fist aimed for Tommy’s gut, an elbow snapped meatily for the trouble as Lightning Bolt swore at Tommy’s face and glanced a kick off Tommy’s knee, his words drowned under Crew Cut’s scream of pain.

Tommy threw the two against each other, just in time to instinctively turn his back as Swastika rushed forward, his blade punching a hole into Tommy’s duffel instead of into his chest. Tommy threw his weight backwards before Swastika could pull the knife free and slammed the kid between his own body and the wall.

The knife fell, clattering to the ground as Tommy threw his weight backwards again, Swastika’s breath exploding out of him with an airless, “ _Fuck!_ ”

Twisting a little, Tommy glanced down as Swastika sagged behind him and stomped down viciously, Swastika’s knee crunching wetly under his boot.

A quick kick sent the knife skittering behind a pair of trash cans and Tommy turned, his eyes bright and cold as ice as he looked down at Swastika crumpled against the wall, clutching at his leg, face streaked red and white and snot running from his nose as he turned terrified brown eyes up to Tommy.

“You f—you fucker,” Swastika gasped, upper lip twitching. “You fu—”

Tommy grasped Swastika’s face in both hands and slammed the kid’s stubbly shaved head hard against the bricks, once, twice, three times, til Swastika fell limp and unconscious to the ground.

Tommy turned again to Crew Cut and Lightning Bolt, the latter trying to haul the former to his feet as Crew Cut cradled his arm to his chest, spittle flying from his teeth as he hissed hyperventilating breaths between them. Lightning Bolt’s eyes flashed wildly at Tommy as Tommy took two sharp strides to them, and in completing the second step kicked Crew Cut hard in the face.

Crew Cut went down, Lightning Bolt dropping his friend’s dead weight as he put up both shaking fists.

Tommy batted away the punch that followed and snatched Lightning Bolt by the throat, fingers and thumb digging into the tattooed bolts on either side of his neck.

_Kill him kill him kill him kill him kill him KILL HIM_

Tommy stared wide eyed down at Lightning Bolt’s purpling face, into those bulging, frightened eyes, unmoved by the nails gouging at his wrist as Lightning Bolt fishmouthed uselessly.

_KILL_

_HIM_

A sudden sharp kick caught Tommy from behind and he went down to one knee with a grunt.

Grip not loosening on Lightning Bolt, he whipped his head around to see String Bean pulling himself up against the wall, teeth bared with the viciousness born only of fear.

Lightning Bolt’s hands slipped off Tommy’s wrist and Tommy dropped him like garbage, getting his foot back under him and leveraging back up to face String Bean.

Baring his own teeth in a bloodthirsty grin, Tommy cracked off a broken-glass laugh and strode forward. He caught a glancing punch to the jaw as he reached for String Bean, snatched his shirt collar, the Confederate flag distorting over his chest as Tommy hauled him close, ignoring another punch that landed against his shoulder as he lifted String Bean off his feet and hefted him against the wall.

“The fuck are you?” hissed String Bean, kicking at Tommy’s legs ineffectually. “The fuck are you?”

Tommy’s only answer was a heavy fist slammed down into String Bean’s face.

He hit him, as his shins and knees took a battering, again, and again, and again. The skin split over the bridge of String Bean’s nose, over his cheekbone, across Tommy’s knuckles.

He hit him until those feet stopped flailing and merely dangled, til Tommy’s fist in String Beans’ collar was all the held him up, and then, snake hissing in his ear, his own breath hissing between his teeth, Tommy let him fall in a heap to the ground.

He stood over the splayed, unconscious body, chest heaving, limbs trembling with the adrenaline, sweat slicking cold as ice down his spine, and his fingers twitch at his side.

_kill them_

The green flechette burned in Tommy’s pocket, every edge searing against his skin through his pants.

 _Kill. Them_.

His hand twitched, moved towards his pocket, his eyes glued to String Bean’s exposed throat, thin and fragile, his pulse fluttering vulnerably just under his jaw.

It would be so easy.

So easy.

 _KILL_.

“No,” he breathed, the word tearing off his tongue like velcro, clinging, abrading.

The snake squeezed around his insides, the hiss in his ear the throaty acid of Talia’s disapproval.

“No,” Tommy said again, firmly.

Swallowing hard, he clenched his teeth and turned away from String Bean, surveying the other bodies on the ground.

There were cuts and bruises, a couple of mangled limbs, but every chest rose and fell, no blood pooling dark and glimmering in the streetlight.

Tommy let his breath out long, slow, and shaking like unspooling wire, until the snake in his guts faded away and the hunger he felt no longer craved hot iron.

Dragging his bottom lip through his teeth, he whispered, “Fuck you.”

He said it to the crumpled little shitheads who’d thought to jump him for fun, and he said it to the clawing ghost of Talia al Ghul.

Physically shaking himself, knee and jaw beginning to ache, Tommy cast about for his little plastic bag of supplies, spotting the bright yellow thank-you smiley crinkled on the alley floor not far from Swastika’s prone form.

He picked it up, sliding his wrist through the thin plastic loops as his duffel bumped heavily against his elbow. Remembering the knife, Tommy turned the bag around to finger at the rip in the canvas, his lips flattening into an irritated line.

He looked down at Swastika, and for a moment considered giving him a few solid kicks, a couple of broken ribs to remember him by. His boot scraped against the gritty pavement, knee bending for the kick—

The light glinted off a wallet chain dipping from Swastika’s belt loop into his pocket, and Tommy put his head on one side, an idea bursting in his head clean as a soap bubble against the lingering red haze.

Mouth carving a mean smirk across his face, Tommy tugged the chain free and unhooked the wallet that followed. He flipped the leather billfold open, nodding to himself at the contents. He slipped the cards from their slots and pulled a trio of twenties from the inside pocket. The debit card reading “Francis Curtis Iverson” he flipped into one of the trashcans. The driver’s license with Francis’s date of birth and address slid into Tommy’s back pocket along with the twenties, the emptied wallet bouncing off Francis’s chest.

Tommy patted him down but found no concealed weapons; he then peered behind the metal garbage cans and located the butterfly knife. Tommy flipped it around his own knuckles a few times, familiarizing himself with its weight, length, the smoothness of the hinge. It was well-cared for.

This too went into Tommy’s pockets with a flippant, “Thanks,” over his shoulder.

Moving efficiently, he rolled the two downed neo nazis slumped together next, adding Brantley Wilson Foster’s license to Francis’s and, to his delight, discovering a tight roll of fifties and hundreds on Crew Cut. He took Crew Cut’s brass knuckles while he was at it and, after patting down Brantley, discovered a little swiss army knife no longer than his pinkie.

“Fucking idiot,” Tommy murmured. “Had a knife in a fight and didn’t even bother to use it.”

String Bean, like Crew Cut, had no driver’s license on him, but three credit cards—each with different names on them—went into the trash, along with a ring of keys in the inside pocket of his leather jacket. He had no weapons, but Tommy paused thoughtfully, considering.

Finally, stripped the jacket roughly off of String Bean and swung his duffel briefly to the ground. Tommy shrugged into his new leather jacket, rubbing the soft, supple brown leather between his fingers. It was a warm night and the summer heat had yet to leach out of early September, but this was Northern California and fall would be coming all too soon. The jacket was good quality, and Tommy looked better in it than the skinny white supremacist piece of shit ever could anyways.

A little sorer and, adrenaline fading, feeling a touch weaker, Tommy left the alley nonetheless hundreds of dollars richer and all too satisfied.

The fight had settled something gnawing and cagey inside of him, rattling at his ribcage and gnawing on his insides. Talia’s voice had receded from his head, if only for the time being,  and there was a certain relief in stretching violence in him like a muscle and discovering it moved easily and, ultimately, under his own control.

A smile curling on his lips, Tommy looked up and down the street and found it empty. The women from the corner had disappeared, no doubt evaporating into the night for safer vantages when the screaming had started.

The bodega's lights still shone like a beacon in the dark, and Tommy slid his hand into his pocket and fingered his newly acquired riches.

He could get a motel room with this money. Not have to squat another night in the corner of that filthy hole a block over.

But first, some proper supplies.

Tommy pushed back through the convenience store’s door, his spine and shoulders straighter, his stride carrying a little more swagger.

The cashier glanced up from his magazine in an abrupt double-take, eyes widening and mouth falling open. “You’re back,” he said with faint surprise.

Tommy offered him a genial smile and nod. “Forgot a few things.”

The cashier’s brow knotted in clear confusion and he watched as Tommy picked up one of the plastic blue carry baskets stacked by the door and made his way up and down the aisles, loading up with a liberal hand. Halfway through, he dropped his full basket at the counter and quickly returned to the door for a second basket, making another pass through that included the refrigerated section.

Back at the front counter, Tommy glanced to the side and noticed the promotional display of a small, wheeled cooler at the end of the counter and hummed appreciatively as he dropped his second basket behind the first, the cashier still making his way through the first with an uncertain hesitancy.

Tommy nodded at the cooler. “That too, please. You need me to pick it up to scan?”

The cashier shook his head, eyes skeptical. “No. Got a code.” He hesitated, bending to set the empty first basket on the floor at his feet. “You sure about all this, son?”

He glanced at the total-reader, the digital green number already well over fifty dollars and the second basket still unscanned.

Tommy gave him the smile he used to use on vendors at Verdant. “I appreciate your concern, sir. But I’m sure.”

Looking far from reassured, the cashier scanned and bagged the remaining items more briskly, the look on his face settling into something more jaded and resigned, no doubt expecting to get stiffed and stuck with reshelving all of Tommy’s purchases.

At the end of it all, the total-reader showed an amount upwards of one hundred dollars.

With a sigh, the cashier began, “Listen, son—”

But Tommy pulled the rubber-band rolled cash out of his pocket, snapping the band free and peeling off a hundred and a fifty. The cashier cut off at the sight of the money, his eyes widening and brows making a break for his hairline. Tommy set the bills on the countertop, the fluorescent lights above gleaming on the bloody, broken red skin of his knuckles, prompting a subvocal swear from the cashier. The cashier continued to gape as Tommy calmly began gathering his bags.

He carried the bags over to his new cooler and unloaded the cold items into before pulling the retracting handle up. He tied the remaining bags to the midline bar of the handle and wheeled it back over to the cash counter. The cashier was staring at him with a particular alert caution now, a hint of fear pinching at the corners of his eyes.

The look had a sudden dampening effect on Tommy’s smug satisfaction, but he quickly wrestled down the disappointment over the loss of the older man’s kind concern.

He was the monster of his own making, now, after all.

There was a weight to that Tommy would have to adjust to living with.

Clearing his throat, he shifted his grip on the cooler handle and impulsively snagged a Starling Kings baseball cap off a strip display dangling down the counter’s front. “I’ll take this too. Uh… keep the change.” He shifted towards the door, hesitated. “And thanks.”

Turning away before the cashier could respond—or not—Tommy tugged the cap down on his head and escaped into the night, heading in the opposite direction from the hovel he’d sheltered in the last week, from the alley that held his unconscious victims, towards the inner border of the Glades and the seedy motels that cluttered the unofficial line between the safe, brightly-lit Starling and the darker, poorer borough of the Glades.

Once upon a time, Tommy Merlyn was one of those clean and shining citizens of the bright city, secure in his place and position of safety and wealth, only ever venturing into the Glades as a thrillseeker and tourist, leering at its seedy nooks and crannies, oblivious to its desperate darkness and hollow hunger.

A year and a half ago and a lifetime away.

Now he strolled the streets as a living piece of that darkness, and the Glades welcomed him home, bitter and backhanded, as one of its own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone is interested in this little bit of trivia, this chapter crosses the 500 pages threshold for Long Way Down as a series! If you might like to celebrate with me, watch my tumblr (absentlyabbie) for further details of a little something special to mark the occasion. ;)
> 
> Thank you all so much for riding shotgun with me on this crazy ride, all the long way down this dark and bumpy road. I couldn't have possibly reached this far or written this much without the enthusiasm and continued, faithful interest of each of you, my beloved readers. This has been a thrilling and humbling experience as I have grown as a writer and storyteller, and I am unspeakably grateful. I hope you take a little pride with me in producing five hundred pages of this story, because you are as much a part of it as I am.


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